Anisotropy of tensile strength and fracture mode of perfect face-centered-cubic crystals

This study presents an effective method to calculate the ideal tensile strength of six face-centered-cubic (fcc) crystals (Cu, Au, Ni, Pt, Al, and Ir) along an arbitrary tensile direction by considering the coupling effect of normal stress and shear stress on a given crystallographic plane. Meanwhile, the fracture modes of the six crystals can also be derived from the competition between shear and cleavage fracture along different crystallographic planes. The results show that both the intrinsic factors (the ideal shear strength and cleavage strength of low-index planes) and the orientation may affect the tensile strength and fracture modes of ideal fcc crystals, which may give the reliable strength limit of fcc metals and well interpret the observed high strength in nano-scale mechanical experiments. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.