Molecular dynamics simulation of the influence of a vacancy concentration on the tilt boundary migration velocity in nickel

The influence of vacancy concentration on the migration rate of high-angle tilt boundaries with misorientation axes $\langle111\rangle$ and $\langle100\rangle$ in nickel was studied by the method of molecular dynamics. It is shown that the dependence of the migration rate on the concentration of vacancies introduced at the initial stage of modeling has a maximum near 1%. The decrease in the migration rate with a further increase in the free volume is mainly due to the deceleration of the boundary by low-mobile vacancy clusters, which at high vacancy concentrations the boundary is no longer capable of sorbing. The second reason for the decrease in the migration rate with an increase in the concentration of vacancies above 1% is a decrease in the surface tension of grain boundaries and, accordingly, the driving force of their migration due to the finite sorption capacity of the boundaries with respect to the excess free volume.