Titanium content and columnar particles effect on the deformation behaviors of nanocrystalline Ni–Ti alloy with GBAZ segregation

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is carried out to analyze the titanium content effect on the deformation behaviors in nanocrystalline (NC) Ni–Ti alloy with alloy atoms segregated in grain boundary affect zone (GBAZ). The GBAZ is generated by equidistance scaling of the vertices of a polygon using an isometric entity command. The MD simulation indicates that the fracture toughness and tensile strength of NC Ni–Ti alloy can be obviously enhanced by augmenting the titanium content. This corresponding deformation mechanisms about the enhanced fracture toughness through enlarging the titanium content are explored in detail. Furthermore, the influence of columnar particles on the mechanical behaviors of NC Ni–Ti alloy is studied. At the same time, the pinning mechanism of columnar particles on GBAZ of the matrix phase is analyzed.