Molecular dynamics study on spallation fracture in single crystal and nanocrystalline tin

Spallation fracture in ductile metals with low melting points is an important scientific concern of dynamic fracture. Classical spallation and micro-spallation simulations of single crystal (SC) and nanocrystalline (NC) tin were carried out using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics at shock pressures of 13.5–61.0 GPa. The shock wave velocity had no effect on the waveform evolution in the SC Sn but not in the NC Sn. The front width of the stress wave in the classical spallation of the NC Sn was predominantly affected by grain boundary sliding. The atomic trajectory technique was first introduced to reproduce the evolutionary processes of void growth and coalescence quite effectively. In the classical spallation, the differences in void evolution behavior of SC and NC Sn were mainly reflected in nucleation position, spatial distribution, and growth zone, while their evolutionary behaviors were shared in the micro-spallation. In the NC model, for the classic spallation, voids mostly nucleated at grain boundaries and grew along grain boundaries, resulting in intergranular fractures; for the micro-spallation, voids nucleated at the grain boundary and inside the grain, resulting in intergranular, intragranular, and transgranular fractures. Furthermore, the void volume fraction followed the bilinear rise at the early nucleation and growth stages, and the critical transition point fundamentally signified the initiation of void nucleation to growth.