Grain-boundary shearing as a test for interface melting

We examine the behaviour of the (310) symmetric tilt boundary with applied shear stress in a face-centred cubic Lennard-Jones crystal. Our purpose is to observe the mechanical properties of grain boundaries resulting from interface melting. The grain boundary is seen to exhibit significant self-diffusion at temperatures above 80% of the bulk melting point (T-m). Excess thermodynamic properties and the density of the system change dramatically in this region. However, the system is able to resist shear up to the higher temperature of 0.96T(m). Plots of particle trajectories in the interface and estimates of the number of melted layers provide insight into an understanding of this behaviour.