A computational study on the deformation of nanocrystalline nickel

A phase mixture based finite element model was developed and the deformation of nanocrystalline nickel was studied in this paper. Monocrystalline grain interior phase and amorphous grain boundary phase were applied in the finite element model respectively. The digital topological model, which followed the Log-normal distribution, was generated by a systematic method. The experimental strain and strain rate hardening behaviors and severe nonlinearity phenomena of nanocrystalline nickel can be predicted very well by the numerical simulation. By presenting evolution process of Mises stress and equivalent plastic strain, we found shear localization phenomenon and much faster plastic deformation in grain boundary phase. These result in the relatively lower ductility of nanocrystalline nickel compared with that of coarse-grain counterparts.