A study into the effect of temperature and size of nanostructures on fracture under external mechanical loads
The paper studies the effect of temperature and size of nano-objects on mechanical characteristics and fracture using molecular dynamics simulation. It is shown that the smallest studied transverse size ny ´ nz = 5 ´ 5 of lattice cells is boundary for nanostructures with a perfect crystal lattice, and at large sizes these characteristics approach the same parameters of macroobjects. Young's modulus and the value of applied stress at fracture (critical load) decrease linearly with temperature rise for all the systems considered.