Influence of normal stress on theoretical shear strength of fcc metals

The influence of stress applied perpendicularly to a slip plane during the shear deformation of a crystal on the ideal shear strength was studied for 〈 1 1 0 〉 { 1 1 1 } and 〈 1 1 2 〉 { 1 1 1 } slip systems from first principles. Previous empirical studies for Lennard–Jones crystal suggested nearly linear dependence of the shear strength on the normal tensile and compressive loading. Our ab initio results verified the linear dependence for six fcc metals.