Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Dislocation Plasticity Mechanism of Nanoscale Ductile Materials in the Cold Gas Dynamic Spray Process

The dislocation plasticity of ductile materials in a dynamic process of cold gas spraying is a relatively new research topic. This paper offers an insight into the microstructure and dislocation mechanism of the coating using simulations of molecular dynamics (MD) because of the short MD simulation time scales. The nano-scale deposition of ductile materials onto a deformable copper substrate has been investigated in accordance with the material combination and impact velocities in the particle/substrate interfacial region. To examine the jetting mechanisms in a range of process parameters, rigorous analyses of the developments in pressure, temperature, dislocation plasticity, and microstructure are investigated. The pressure wave propagation’s critical function was identified by the molecular dynamics’ simulations in particle jet initiation, i.e., exterior material flow to the periphery of the particle and substrate interface. The initiation of jet occurs at the point of shock waves interact with the particle/substrate periphery and leads to localization of the metal softening in this region. In particular, our findings indicate that the initial particle velocity significantly influences the interactions between the material particles and the substrate surface, yielding various atomic strain and temperature distribution, processes of microstructure evolution, and the development of dislocation density in the particle/substrate interfacial zone for particles with various impact velocities. The dislocation density in the particle/substrate interface area is observed to grow much more quickly during the impact phase of Ni and Cu particles and the evolution of the microstructure for particles at varying initial impact velocities is very different.