Blended Ghost Force Correction Method for 3D Crystalline Defects

Abstract: Atomistic/continuum coupling method is a class of multiscale computational method for the efficient simulation of crystalline defects. The recently developed blended ghost force correction (BGFC) method combines the efficiency of blending methods and the accuracy of QNL type methods. BGFC method can be applied to multi-body interaction potentials and general interfaces. In this paper, we present the formulation, implementation and analysis of the BGFC method in three dimensions. In particular, we focus on the difference and connection with other blending variants, such as energy based blended quasi-continuum method (BQCE) and force based blended quasi-continuum method (BQCF). The theoretical results are justified by a few benchmark numerical experiments with point defects and microcrack in the three dimensional FCC lattice.