A first approach to engineering problems in nanosized systems requires a thorough understanding of how physical properties change as size decreases from the macroscale. One important class of properties that can be severely affected by such a downward size shift are transport properties - classical mass, momentum and energy transport. Using atomistic simulation techniques, primarily molecular dynamics, and statistical expressions for diffusion, viscosity, and thermal conductivity formulated in terms of atomistic properties, three case studies of transport in important, nanosized systems are investigated, including confined water systems, silicon-germanium nanos- tructures, and carbon nanostructures. In the first study of confined water systems, diffusion and viscosity are of primary interest, as recent experimental studies have shown notably increased rates of diffusion through nano-confined carbon nanotube structures. In this work, a full treatment of the transport properties is provided in both water clusters and water thin films, both having characteristic size scales under 11 nm. The diffusion, viscosity, and thermal conductivity in the nanosized systems are all shown to be significantly different from bulk water systems, with diffusion and thermal transport increasing and viscosity decreasing. For silicon-germanium nanostructures, the thermal transport properties are exclusively considered, with the problem of interest concerning the control of thermal transport through a strict control on the nanostructure. Quantum dot superlattices are shown to be effective structures for controlling the thermal transport properties, the available range of thermal conductivity using these structures being 0.1-160 W/mK. The final study concerns graphene nanostructures, which in terms of thermal transport have some of the highest thermal conductivities of any available materials. Control of thermal transport properties is again of primary importance, with various physical aspects - defects, shape, and size - being probed in graphene, graphene nano ribbons, carbon nanotubes, and fullerenes to determine their influence on transport; overall, these structures yield a large range of thermal transport, 10-2500 W/mK.

The main goal of this work is to determine values of elastic constants of orthotropic, transversely isotropic and cubic materials through indentation tests on thin layers bonded to rigid substrates. Accordingly, we first use the Stroh formalism to provide an analytical solution for generalized plane strain deformations of a linear elastic anisotropic layer bonded to a rigid substrate, and indented by a rigid cylindrical indenter. The mixed boundary-value problem is challenging since the deformed indented surface of the layer contacting the rigid cylinder is unknown a priori, and is to be determined as a part of the solution of the problem. For a rigid parabolic prismatic indenter contacting either an isotropic layer or an orthotropic layer, the computed solution is found to compare well with solutions available in the literature. Parametric studies have been conducted to delimit the length and the thickness of the layer for which the derived relation between the axial load and the indentation depth is valid. We then derive an expression relating the axial load, the indentation depth, and the elastic constants of an orthotropic material. This relation is specialized to a cubic material (e.g., an FCC single crystal). By using results of three virtual (i.e., numerical) indentation tests on the same specimen oriented differently, we compute values of the elastic moduli, and show that they agree well with their expected values. The technique can be extended to other anisotropic materials. We review the literature on relations between deformations at the atomic level and stresses and strains defined at the continuum level. These are then used to compare stress and strain distributions in mechanical tests performed on atomic systems and their equivalent continuum structures. Whereas averaged stresses and strains defined in terms of the overall deformations of the atomic system match well with those derived from the continuum description of the body, their local spatial distributions differ. / Ph. D.

The bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) are potential metallic materials due to their interesting properties, such as the high strength, high elastic strain limit, and high wear/corrosion resistance. Over the past four decades, a variety of studies have been done on the characteristics of the mechanical, thermodynamic properties of such category of metallic materials, but there still remain many questions about basic deformation mechanisms and their microstructures so far. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation can provide significant insight into material properties under the atomic level and see a detailed picture of the model under available investigation in explaining the connection of macroscopic properties to atomic scale. MD simulation is applied to study the material properties and the deformation mechanisms in various binary metallic glasses and intended to examine the feasibility of MD simulation to compare the experimental results obtained in our laboratory over the past few years. The gradual vitrification evolution of atom mixing and local atomic pairing structure of the binary Zr-Ni, Zr-Ti alloys and pure Zr element during severe deformation at room temperature is traced numerically by molecular dynamic simulation. It is found that the icosahedra clusters will gradually develop with the increasing of disorder environment of alloys in the Zr-Ni, Zr-Ti systems, forming amorphous atomic packing. Other compound-like transition structures were also observed in transient in the Zr-Ni couple during the solid-state amorphization process under severe plastic deformation. The crystalline pure Zr can be vitrified in the simulation provided that the rolling speed is high enough and the rolling temperature is maintained at around 300 K. On the other hand, the effective medium theory (EMT) inter-atomic potential is employed in the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to challenge the study of the diffusion properties in the Mg-Cu thin films. The transition of local structures of Mg-Cu thin films is traced at annealing temperatures of 300, 413, and 500 K. Furthermore, the simulation results are compared with the experimental results obtained from the transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The gradual evolution of the local atomic pairing and cluster structure is discussed in light of the Mg and Cu atomic characteristics. Lately, the progress of the cyclic-fatigue damage in a binary Zr-Cu metallic glass in small size scale is investigated using classical molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations. The three-dimensional Zr-Cu fully amorphous structure is produced by quenching at a cooling rate 5 K/ps (ps = 10-12 s-1) from a high liquid temperature. The Nose-Hoover chain method is used to control the temperature and pressure to maintain a reasonable thermodynamic state during the MD-simulation process, as well as to bring the imposed cyclic stress on the subsequent simulation process. Both the stress- and strain-control cyclic loadings are applied to investigate the structural response and free-volume evolution. The overall structure would consistently maintain the amorphous state during cyclic loading. The plastic deformation in simulated samples proceeds via the network-like development of individual shear transition zones (STZs) by the reversible and irreversible structure-relaxations during cyclic loading, dislike the contribution of shear band in large-scale specimens. Dynamic recovery and reversible/irreversible structure rearrangements occur in the current model, along with annihilation of excessive free volumes. This behavior might be able to retard the damage growth of metallic glass and enhance their fatigue life.