Choosing Appropriate Interatomic Potentials for Nanometric Molecular Dynamics (MD) Simulations

There is a need to choose appropriate interatomic empirical potentials for the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of nanomachining, so as to represent chip formation and other cutting processes reliably. Popularly applied potentials namely; Lennard-Jones (LJ), Morse, Embedded Atom Method (EAM) and Tersoff were employed in the molecular dynamics simulation of nanometric machining of copper workpiece with diamond tool. The EAM potentials were used for the modelling of the copper-copper atom interactions. The pairs of EAM-Morse and EAM-LJ were used for the workpiece-tool (copper-diamond) atomic interface. The Tersoff potential was used for the carbon-carbon interactions in the diamond tool. Multi-pass simulations were carried out and it was observed that the EAM-LJ and the EAM-Morse pair potentials with the tool modelled as deformable with Tersoff potential were best suitable for the simulation. The former exhibit the lowest cutting forces and the latter has the lowest potential energy.