Strain rate and orientation dependencies of the strength of single crystalline copper under compression

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are used to model the compression under uniaxial strain of copper single crystals of different orientations at various temperatures and strain rates. Uniaxial strain is used because of the close resemblance of the resulting stress state with the one behind a shock front, while allowing a control of parameters such as strain rate and temperature to better understand the behavior under complex dynamic shock conditions. Our simulations show that for most orientations, the yield strength of the sample is increased with increasing strain rate. This yield strength is also dependent on the orientation of the sample, but less dependent on temperature. We find three regimes for the atomistic behavior around the yield: homogeneous dislocation nucleation, appearance of disordered atoms followed by dislocation nucleation, and amorphization. Finally, we show that a criterion solely based on a critical resolved shear and normal stress is insufficient at these strain rates to determine slip on a system.