Thesis Defense: Paul Simanjuntak, Physics, Astronomy & Materials Science

Development of Many-body Potential for Deformation Study in

Al-TiN Nanolayered Composites by Paul Simanjuntak

A novel interatomic potential of ternary Al-Ti-N has been developed to study the deformation behavior of Al-TiN nanolaminates. The ternary nanolayered Al-TiN composite has attracted a large interest due to its combination of strength and ductility.  

The current analysis on the system has been primarily concentrated on continuum models which are inadequate to explain the key deformation events such as nucleation and interaction of dislocations. Progress in the preferred atomistic approach has been hampered, however, by the lack of available interatomic potential optimized for the ternary system. We developed a many-body potential based on Embedded Atomic Model (EAM) by employing the force-tting code Pott to sample the energy and force data generated from the ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations of the ternary system using VASP code. 

Faculty and students are invited to attend this graduate thesis defense. Paul Simanjuntak is a student in the Materials Science program, and Dr. Ridwan Sakidja (PAMS) is his research advisor.