A Micromechanical Model for Deformation Behavior of Nanocrystalline Copper

Molecular dynamics simulations have show that nanocrystalline (NC) materials can be treated as composite materials consisting of two phases of grain and grain boundary. In this paper, the incremental stress-strain relation is derived based on deformation mechanism of NC materials and internal variable theory from micromechanics point of view. The developed model is exemplified by the pure copper subjected to uniaxial tension. Implicated iteration algorithm is then employed to obtain the stress-strain relation. Moreover, the effects of grain shape and statistical distribution of grain sizes are also discussed, and predicted results are compared with experimental values to verify the model.