Molecular dynamics modelling of micro/nano manufacturing processes

Abstract

Manufacturing processes such as machining, casting, welding, forming including additive manufacturing are essential processes to fabricate various types of components. These manufacturing processes have been developed and are improving with time by optimising process parameters and revealing better insights about the processes. Earlier, research has used various tools like finite element analysis, mathematical modelling, etc., to improve the process understanding and their optimisation. This has brought the significance of computational modelling to support the analysis and optimization of manufacturing processes. In general, any manufacturing process works on two different domains of size scale such as micro scale and macro scale mechanism. Micro scale mechanism is associated with micro/nano manufacturing processes which differs from the macro scale, and conventional tools of modelling do not support it. During the last few decades, there has been an increasing interest in the simulations of micro/nano manufacturing processes. Modelling at nano scale brings out deep insights into the mechanisms and different phenomena. Out of the various modelling approaches, Molecular Dynamics (MD) modelling approach is the most preferred technique to simulate nanoscale manufacturing and investigate the science behind the processes. In general, MD simulation was extensively being used in the field of biology and chemistry towards discovery of novel drugs, chemical, materials, etc. In the last few decades, MD simulation has also been implemented by researchers in the field of manufacturing especially for polishing and thin film technology. Recently there has been a demand to use this tool to discover all possible phenomena at the atomic scale for all types of manufacturing processes. In this special issue of the Journal of Micromanufacturing, recent findings in micro/nano manufacturing through molecular dynamics modelling are aimed. In MD simulation, materials are modelled from atoms by assuming the atoms obey Newton’s second law of motion and will interact using interatomic potential. This concept of modelling brings insight into the manufacturing processes at atomic scale. However, modelling materials at the atomic scale requires reducing the temporal resolution of the order of a few picoseconds. Thus, the computational effort and time become enormous when any process is being modelled at a nanometric scale. Moreover, this approach becomes impossible to model when the space frame is in order of a few microns or more. To overcome this issue, researchers have identified alternate approaches like coarse grain modelling, multi-scale modelling, atom to continuum modelling, etc. All these techniques utilise the MD modelling at the zone of interaction and due to this, the special issue has focussed on MD simulation related novel outcomes for various types of manufacturing processes such as nanofinishing, nanomachining, additive manufacturing, nano-indentation, material’s mechanical characterisation, etc. In addition, this Special Issue will also promote and disseminate the latest works focused on MD modelling and simulation of various micro/nano-manufacturing processes and encourage researchers to adopt this technique to cater the present and future demand of technology. A brief report about the articles accepted under this issue are summarised as follows.