Open Access

ARTICLE

Impact Analysis of Microscopic Defect Types on the Macroscopic Crack Propagation in Sintered Silver Nanoparticles

by Zhongqing Zhang¹, Bo Wan^1,*, Guicui Fu¹, Yutai Su^2,*, Zhaoxi Wu³, Xiangfen Wang¹, Xu Long²

1 School of Reliability and Systems Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China
2 School of Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Architecture, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China
3 China Aerospace Components Engineering Center, Beijing, 100098, China

* Corresponding Authors: Bo Wan. Email: ; Yutai Su. Email:

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2024, 139(1), 441-458. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2023.043616

Received 07 July 2023; Accepted 16 October 2023; Issue published 30 December 2023

Abstract

Sintered silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are widely used in high-power electronics due to their exceptional properties. However, the material reliability is significantly affected by various microscopic defects. In this work, the three primary micro-defect types at potential stress concentrations in sintered AgNPs are identified, categorized, and quantified. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are employed to observe the failure evolution of different microscopic defects. The dominant mechanisms responsible for this evolution are dislocation nucleation and dislocation motion. At the same time, this paper clarifies the quantitative relationship between the tensile strain amount and the failure mechanism transitions of the three defect types by defining key strain points. The impact of defect types on the failure process is also discussed. Furthermore, traction-separation curves extracted from microscopic defect evolutions serve as a bridge to connect the macro-scale model. The validity of the crack propagation model is confirmed through tensile tests. Finally, we thoroughly analyze how micro-defect types influence macro-crack propagation and attempt to find supporting evidence from the MD model. Our findings provide a multi-perspective reference for the reliability analysis of sintered AgNPs.

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Keywords

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