title: Atomistic aspects of ductile responses of cubic silicon carbide during nanometric cutting.
abstract: Cubic silicon carbide (SiC) is an extremely hard and brittle material having unique blend of material properties which makes it suitable candidate for microelectromechanical systems and nanoelectromechanical systems applications. Although, SiC can be machined in ductile regime at nanoscale through single-point diamond turning process, the root cause of the ductile response of SiC has not been understood yet which impedes significant exploitation of this ceramic material. In this paper, molecular dynamics simulation has been carried out to investigate the atomistic aspects of ductile response of SiC during nanometric cutting process. Simulation results show that cubic SiC undergoes sp3-sp2 order-disorder transition resulting in the formation of SiC-graphene-like substance with a growth rate dependent on the cutting conditions. The disorder transition of SiC causes the ductile response during its nanometric cutting operations. It was further found out that the continuous abrasive action between the diamond tool and SiC causes simultaneous sp3-sp2 order-disorder transition of diamond tool which results in graphitization of diamond and consequent tool wear.
authors.affiliation: School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, EH144AS, Scotland, UK. x.luo@hw.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Saurav
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goel
authors.forename: Xichun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Reuben
authors.forename: Waleed Bin
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Rashid
references.citation: Phys Rev B Condens Matter. 1994 Jun 15;49(23):16349-16352
references.pmid: 10010784
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Aug 17;99(7):076802
references.pmid: 17930914
references.citation: Nat Mater. 2011 Jan;10(1):34-8
references.pmid: 21113152
references.citation: J Mol Graph. 1996 Feb;14(1):33-8, 27-8
references.pmid: 8744570