Role of grain boundary energetics on the maximum strength of nanocrystalline Nickel

Numerical simulations are used to investigate the competing grain boundary and dislocation mediated deformation mechanisms in nanocrystalline Ni with grain sizes in the range 4–32 nm. We present a 3D phase field model that tracks the evolution of individual dislocations and grain boundaries. Our model shows that the transition from Hall–Petch to inverse Hall–Petch as the grain size is reduced cannot be characterized only by the grain size, but it is also affected by the grain boundary energetics. We find that the grain size corresponding to the maximum yield stress (the transition from Hall–Petch strengthening with decreasing grain size to inverse Hall–Petch) decreases with increasing grain boundary energy. Interestingly, we find that for grain boundaries with high cohesive energy the Hall–Petch maximum is not observed for grains in the range 4–32 nm.