Void growth via atomistic simulation: will the formation of shear loops still grow a void under different thermo-mechanical constraints?

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations under different mechanical and thermal constraints are carried out with a nanovoid embedded inside a single-crystal, face-centred-cubic copper. The dislocation emission angles measured from MD plots under 0.1 K, uniaxial-strain simulation are in line with the theoretical model. The dislocation density calculated from simulation is qualitatively consistent with the experimental measurement in terms of a saturation feature. The 'relatively farthest-travelled' atoms are employed to reflect the correlation between the dislocation structure and the void growth. At a smaller scale, the incomplete shear dislocation loops on the slip plane contribute to the local material transport. At a larger scale, the dislocation structures formed by those incomplete shear loops further facilitate the growth of nanovoid. Compared to the uniaxial-strain case, the void growth under the uniaxial-stress is very limited. The uniaxial-strain loading results in an octahedron void shape. The uniaxial-stress loading turns the nanovoid into a prolate ellipsoid along the loading direction. In the simulation, the largest specimen contains 12 million atoms and the lowest strain rate applied is 2 x 10(6) s(-1). Under all the different thermomechanical constraints concerned, the formation of incomplete shear dislocation loops are found capable of growing the void.