Influence of van der Waals corrected \textit{xc}-functionals on the anisotropic mechanical properties of coinage metals

Current materials-related calculations employ the density-functional theory (DFT), commonly using the (semi-)local-density approximations for the exchange-correlation (\textit{xc}) functional. The accuracy to studying the electronic structure depends not only on the employed approximation to the \textit{xc} potential but also upon the system which is being investigated. The difficulties in arriving at a reasonable description of van der Waals (vdW) interactions by DFT-based models, is to date a big challenge. This stems from the well-known fact that vdW interaction is a non-local correlation effect which is not captured in the deployed (semi-)local \textit{xc} functionals. In this work, using various flavours of vdW-corrected DFT \textit{xc} functionals, we study the lattice and mechanical properties (including the elastic constants and anisotropic stress-strain curves) of the coinage metals (copper, silver, and gold), and critically assess the reliability of the different vdW-corrected DFT methods in describing their anisotropic mechanical properties which are less reported on in the literature.