ISSN:
1089-7690
Quelle:
AIP Digital Archive
Thema:
Physik
,
Chemie und Pharmazie
Notizen:
Using a statistical-thermodynamic formulation, we investigate the failure of ideal and almost-ideal solids at finite temperature. We propose that the onset of failure in a defect-free crystal is associated with the loss of a metastable minimum in the free energy at a critical value of the applied tensile force. Using a mean-field approximation, we estimate the free energy of the two-dimensional Lennard-Jones crystal under stress and derive the temperature dependence of its ideal strength and other properties. These results are compared to Monte Carlo simulations of this system, and the mean-field estimate of the ideal strength is shown to be an upper bound to the values observed via simulation. We also show that atomic-scale defects such as vacancies and substitutional impurities significantly reduce the crystal's strength as a result of stress enhancement effects. While the overall strength of a defective crystal depends strongly on both temperature and the nature of the defects, the maximum local stress that the crystal can sustain without failure is essentially independent of these factors.
Materialart:
Digitale Medien
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.461192
