Effect of stacking fault and temperature on deformation behaviors of nanocrystalline Mg

The effects of stacking fault (SF) spacing and temperature on the mechanical properties of Mg with SF under c-axis tension are investigated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The results indicate that there is an optimal SF spacing for mechanical properties of Mg containing SF. The results also show that the effect of temperature on the deformation behavior is very obvious and the flow stress in Mg with SF exhibits distinctly different behavior at relatively high temperatures. The studies demonstrate that this larruping deformation behavior, at relatively high temperature, is associated with the nucleation and growth of new grain and twin. Furthermore, we find that the effect of SF spacing on the Young's modulus is very slight, regardless of temperature. The general conclusions derived from this work may provide a guideline for the design of high-performance hexagonal close-packed (hcp) metals. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4752024]