Analysis of the stress concentration in the nanomultilayer coatings based on digital representation of the structure

Abstract

Investigation of the stress concentration in the nanomultilayer materials under exploitation conditions is the main objective of the work. During loading a failure can initiate and propagate, which have important impact on material strength and reliability. This is of importance when materials for biological applications are considered. Special features of the investigated material, including irregular shape of the boundaries and columnar structure of these layers lead to growth of local stresses in the material and may be responsible for mentioned instabilities. To capture this behavior during numerical modeling an innovative solutions are required. Authors propose numerical simulation, which combines algorithms of the deposition process for realistic digital material representation of coatings and finite element (FE) approach for modeling of material behavior under loading. Algorithm of the deposition process is implemented using the cellular automata (CA) approach. Based on the developed model, a simple plastometric compression tests are simulated to analyze stress distribution in the material and possibility of failure initiation. These results are compared qualitatively with experimental data, including ball-on-test and transmission electron microscope (TEM) observation. Obtained results are the basis for development of a numerical model for fracture propagation with adopted extended finite element method (XFEM).