Mechanical response of copper nanowires under torsion

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate mechanical properties of < 1 0 0 >, < 1 1 0 > and < 1 1 1 > oriented copper nanowires under different torsional loading rate and temperature. The embedded-atom potential is employed to describe the interactions between Cu atoms. The effects of loading rates and temperature on the critical angle of Cu are discussed. These results of molecular dynamics simulations about the torsion of copper nanowires show that there is a positive correlation between critical angle and loading rate. On the contrary, during the torsion process of copper nanowires, the critical angle decreases with the increasing of temperature. However, mechanical response of copper nanowires under torsion still has some diversity for different lattice orientations. For different loading rate, the amplitude of critical angle of lattice orientation < 1 1 0 > is much bigger than others. What´s more, lattice orientation < 1 1 1 > has a better temperature stability.