Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Helium Behaviour in Titanium Crystals

Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the behaviour of helium atoms in titanium at a temperature of 300K. The nucleation and growth of helium bubble has been simulated up to 50 helium atoms. The approach to simulate the bubble growth is to add helium atoms one by one to the bubble and let the system evolve. The titanium cohesion is based on the tight binding scheme derived from the embedded atom method, and the
helium--titanium interaction is characterized by fitted potential in the form of a Lennard-Jones function. The pressure in small helium bubbles is approximately calculated. The simulation results show that the pressure will decrease with the increasing bubble size, while increase with the increasing helium atoms. An analytic function about the quantitative relationship of the pressure with the bubble size and number of helium atoms is also fitted.