Study on Chip Formation Mechanism of Single Crystal Copper Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Abstract Nano-cutting is an important development direction of the modern manufacturing technology. However, the research on the mechanism underlying nano-cutting lags far behind the practical application, which restricts the development of this advanced manufacturing technology. The chip formation process is the basic process of nano-cutting, and it is of key importance for the mechanism research of nano-cutting. In this paper, the nano-tensile behavior of single crystal copper was studied based on the molecular dynamics simulations. The toughness and brittleness characteristics of the copper at different temperatures were analyzed. Then, the molecular dynamics simulations of nano-cutting for single crystal copper with different toughness and brittleness were studied. The crystal structure, cutting force, stress–strain distribution and atomic motion characteristics were systematically investigated. The nano-chip formation mechanism of single crystal copper was revealed. The results show that the chip is formed through two ways, namely the shear and extrusion. The material near the free surface of the workpiece undergoes continuous shear slip and periodic long-distance slippage along the primary shear direction, forming the block chip in which the FCC and HCP structures are orderly distributed. The material near the tool-chip interface is extruded by the tool, block chip and stagnation zone to form the flowing chip with amorphous structure. As the temperature increases, the occurrence frequency of long-distance slippage in the block chip increases, while the slippage degree decreases. Besides, with the increase in temperature, the thickness of block chip formed by shear slip decreases, while the thickness of flowing chip formed by extrusion increases.