Atomistic studies of the elastic properties of metallic Bcc nanowires and films

In this paper a systematic study of the surface influence on the elastic properties of nanosized iron and tungsten wires and films is performed. Single crystal
defect-free nanowires and nanofilms are examined through molecular statics simulations, and the concepts of surface energy and third order elastic constants are
used in an attempt to describe the elastic properties. For structures where the relaxation strains are small in magnitude, reasonable agreements between the continuum
mechanical solutions and the simulations are obtained. For structures where the relaxation strains are significant it is shown that third order elastic continuum theory
is not sufficient to describe the elastic properties; in fact, sometimes it actually in-
creases the discrepancies between the simulated and predicted results.