Material fragmentation as dissipative process of micro rotation sequence formation: Hybrid model of excitable cellular automata

Abstract

The authors have developed a multi-level model of energy propagation along interfaces between the various structural elements of a solid with taking into account mutual energy transformations of various kinds. They have also designed a computer simulation tool based on the excitable cellular automaton (ECA) method. An algorithm for calculating the local moments of forces has been developed for the case of material rotation and torsion. The relationship for the accumulated elastic energy is supplemented with a dissipation term. Numerical experiments have been carried out on high-energy impact on polycrystalline copper specimens with different grain sizes. The paper shows that during the nanostructuring of material surface layer, the dissipation of elastic energy gives rise to the rotation of structural elements. This makes it possible to prevent the occurrence of stress concentrators with peak values typical of coarse-grained specimens and reducing their mechanical properties.