Polycrystalline aggregates in the thin-wire configuration

Polycrystalline thin wire is an important geometric configuration in micro-electro-mechanical system and microelectronic devices. When the cross-sectional dimension is comparable with the grain size, the mechanical properties of the polycrystalline wire are different from those of its bulk counterpart. In the present paper, we use the finite element analysis with statistical concepts to numerically estimate the effective modulus of polycrystalline copper in the thin-wire configuration. As the number of grains in the cross-section increases, the predicted modulus approaches gradually from below to its bulk value. The modulus difference between the thin wire and the bulk material can be as large as 15%.