The Effect of Interatomic Potentials on Nanometric Abrasive Machining

One of the major tasks in a Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation is the selection of adequate potential functions, and if the potentials don’t model the behaviour of the atoms correctly, the results produced from the simulation would be useless. Three popular potentials namely; Embedded- Atom Potential (EAM), Morse and the Lennand-Jones, were employed to model copper workpiece and diamond tool in nanometric abrasive machining. From the simulation results and further analysis, the EAM potential was found to be the most reliable because it best describes the metallic bonding of the copper atoms and it demonstrated the lowest cutting force variation. More pile of atoms is observed during the phenomenon of ploughing and the potential and total energies are more stable with the EAM.