Atomistic investigations of tensile and shear mechanical properties of nanotwinned copper with embedded defects

The tensile and shear mechanical properties of nanotwinned copper with embedded defects have been investigated by using molecular dynamics simulations. Simulation results show that the stress concentration at the tips of crack-like defects dominates the first partial dislocation nucleation at the onset of plastic deformation, the joint action of twin boundaries and dislocations controls the yield stress at the earlier plastic deformation stage and the dislocation/twin boundary-dislocation interactions determine the plastic flow stage. Furthermore, it is found that the yield stress decreases nonlinearly with the increase of the crack length, while it decreases almost linearly with the increase of the temperature.