Continuum mechanics ability to predict the material response at atomic scale

This paper examines the ability of continuum mechanics (CM) to predict the material response at atomic scale. A graphene sheet is considered as the test specimen. First, the mechanical behavior of the graphene sheet loaded along different orientations is investigated by plotting stress–strain diagrams. Then assuming a uniform loaded graphene sheet as a rod model, the equivalent CM solutions are obtained and compared with the molecular dynamics (MD) results in quasi-static and dynamic loadings. The results show that although CM can predict the overall sketch of the response, it cannot model the detailed atomic motion especially at high temperatures. Finally, based on the energy principles, the local failure criterion for atomic bond disruption is proposed showing an acceptable accuracy in predicting the micro-failure.