Adaptive Mesh Refinement with Elastic Stiffness Coefficients in the Quasicontinuum Model

Abstract

Adaptivemesh refinement and local/non-local transition in our quasicontinuum method (Phys. Rev. B, Vol. 69, No. 21(2004), pp.214104(1-10)) are studied in this paper. Although deformation gradients have been used to determine the mechanical state of an element in the original quasicontinuum method, we adopt elastic stiffness coefficients, which govern stress-strain relationships at finite deformation. Because elastic stiffness coefficients are calculated using the interatomic potential function, we do not need to prepare reference node (atomic) positions. To confirm its applicability, we performed nano-indentation simulations in two dimensions, and found that the criterion values estimated using deformation gradients and elastic stiffness coefficients show a positive correlation.