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Study of the effect of grain size on melting temperature of Al nanocrystals by molecular dynamics simulation

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Abstract

This research is devoted to the study of the effect of grain size and structural disorders on the melting behavior of Al nanocrystals under nonequilibrium conditions. The results indicate that Tm is constant and similar to Tm of perfect crystal for nanocrystals of 14 nm and higher. But, by a decrease in the grain size, Tm is significantly reduced. In addition, by further decrease in the size of the grain up to about three times the value of Al-lattice parameter, the behavior of the melt will be similar to the amorphous phase. Since it seems that these behaviors are related to high percentage of grain boundaries in nanocrystalline materials, the structural disorders of the atoms in different regions of nanocrystalline samples are separately studied during heating. The results show that premelting of boundary regions causes the melting process of nanostructure materials to be done within one temperature limit instead of at one temperature point.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study has been carried out in the Particulate Materials Research Groups (Department of Materials Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology) and National High Performance Computer Center (http://nhpcc.iut.ac.ir). The authors are grateful for their support for this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, 84156, Iran

    Zahra Noori, Masoud Panjepour & Mehdi Ahmadian

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  1. Zahra Noori
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  2. Masoud Panjepour
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  3. Mehdi Ahmadian
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Correspondence to Masoud Panjepour.

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Contributing Editor: Susan B. Sinnott

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Noori, Z., Panjepour, M. & Ahmadian, M. Study of the effect of grain size on melting temperature of Al nanocrystals by molecular dynamics simulation. Journal of Materials Research 30, 1648–1660 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2015.109

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