Modeling and simulation of the probe tip based nanochannel scratching

This paper presents the theoretical modeling and numerical simulation of the probe tip based nanochannel scratching. According to the scratching depth, the probe tip is modeled as a spherical capped conical tip or a spherical capped regular three side pyramid tip to calculate the normal force needed for the nanochannel scratching. In order to further investigate the impact of scratching speed, scratching depth and scratching direction on the scratching process, the scratching simulation is implemented in LS-DYNA software, and a mesh-less method called smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is used for the sample construction. Based on the theoretical and simulated analyses, the increase of the scratching speed, the scratching depth and the face angle will result in an increase in the normal force. At the same scratching depth, the normal forces of the spherical capped regular three side pyramid tip model are different in different scratching directions, which are in agreement with the theoretical calculations in the d3 and d4 directions. Moreover, the errors between the theoretical and simulated normal forces increase as the face angle increases.