Mechanical property evaluation on the bending and compressing behaviour of nano-beam

Based on quasicontinuum (QC) multiscale simulation method, a series of simulation models were set up for bending and compressing rod-shaped microstructure of single crystal Cu. The effects of structural parameters on typical mechanical properties were analyzed, such as elastic modulus, elastic limit, yield strength, and Poisson’s ratio. According to the analysis of displacement, inner stress and strain energy, the mechanisms of deformation and failure were also revealed. The experimental result shows that the mechanical properties exhibit obvious size effect during the bending and compression process. In the bending simulation, when the span-thickness ratio is more than 10, the elastic modulus rises slightly with the increase of strain. And the smaller the beam is, the faster the elastic modulus grows. Meanwhile, when the span-thickness ratio keeps constant the elastic modulus will decrease with the growth of the beam sizes. However, in the compression model, the size effect on Poisson’s ratio is not remarkable. The dimensional change in one direction cannot influence the mechanical parameters greatly. Mechanical twins and dislocation contribute to the compression behaviour greatly. Meanwhile, the stress concentration can also be found in the inner partial area and the strain energy decreases abruptly after the crush of beam microstructure.