CGPACK > OCT-2014
31-OCT-2014: Made a submission for the Archer image competition.
Caption: Study of interacting cracks in polycrystalline iron
Extended caption: The images show three alternative views of the same 10 cubic mm volume of iron with 10,000 uniquely shaped crystals. To capture fine details of the shape of each crystal, they are built, on average, from 100,000 tiny cubic cells. The complete, 1 billion cell computer model, requires very large memory for the calculation and the visualisation, which is why we used Archer. In the images the crystal boundaries are shown in purple. The cracks on {100} crystallographic planes are shown in yellow, and those on {110} planes are in green. {100} planes are easier to cleave, so there are more yellow cracks than green. Cracks in individual crystals form a large crack system, spanning across multiple crystal boundaries. A view of cracks through semi-transparent network of crystal boundaries enables a detailed analysis of the influence of crystal boundary orientation on fracture energy, the ultimate aim of this work.