Deformation twinning in nanocrystalline Al by molecular-dynamics simulation

Abstract We use a recently developed, massively parallel molecular-dynamics code for the simulation of polycrystal plasticity to elucidate the intricate interplay between dislocation and GB processes during room-temperature plastic deformation of model nanocrystalline-Al microstructures. Our simulations reveal that under relatively high stresses (of 2.5 GPa) and large plastic strains (of ~12%), extensive deformation twinning takes place, in addition to deformation by the conventional dislocation-slip mechanism. Both heterogeneous and homogeneous nucleation of deformation twins is observed. The heterogeneous mechanism involves the successive emission of Shockley partials from the grain boundaries onto neighboring slip planes. By contrast, the homogeneous process takes place in the grain interiors, by a nucleation mechanism involving the dynamical overlap of the stacking faults of intrinsically and/or extrinsically dissociated dislocations. Our simulations also reveal the mechanism for the formation of a new grain, via an intricate interplay between deformation twinning and dislocation nucleation from the grain boundaries during the deformation. The propensity for deformation twinning observed in our simulations is surprising, given that the process has never been observed in coarse-grained Al and that the well-known pole mechanism cannot operated for such a small grain size. It therefore appears that the basic models for deformation twinning should be extended with particular emphasis on the role of grain-boundary sources in nanocrystalline materials.