Resumen de Estudio de la inhomogeneidad elástica en vidrios metalicos en la mesoescala
Metallic glasses are amorphous solids produced by rapid cooling, with disordered atomic structure and lacking long-range order. This structural disorder makes them to show mechanical properties different from those observed in a crystalline solid.
Metallic glasses are ideally isotropic, but they can become anisotropic during the manufacturing process or as a result of non-homogeneous plastic deformation, creep, etc. Experimental studies showed remnant anisotropy in amorphous PdSiCuP under a homogeneous deformation regime at temperatures close to the glass transition (Tg). In this thesis we studied the remnant anisotropy induced by shear in two amorphous systems by using molecular dynamics simulation. The Cu13Ni34Pd53 system was chosen to approach the PdCuSiP compositions, while the Zr46Cu46Al8 system is an excellent metallic glass former.
Amorphous systems were obtained by fast cooling from the liquid and subsequent thermal annealing. Both systems were then sheared in the [100] direction at a deformation speed of 10^10 s^(-1), and returned to its original form at the same speed. Shearing simulations were performed in isothermal-isobaric conditions at different temperatures. The resulting states were examined using the directional pair distribution function (d-PDF), calculated from the distribution function of interatomic distances in planes perpendicular to the selected axis.
Remnant anisotropy was detected in both systems after a deformation-recovery cycle. Cu13Ni34Pd53 displays remnant anisotropy below the glass transition at 0 and 300 K after the shear process, and again at 700 K after the full deformation-recovery cycle.
The intensity of anisotropy in the d-PDF of Zr46Cu46Al8 is lower than in Cu13Ni34Pd53, possibly due to the different atomic radii. However, it is found in all the studied temperature range, with decreasing intensity with temperature.
Anisotropy is concentrated in the [110] planes and [1(-1)0], corresponding to the planes of maximum and minimum shear respectively. This result indicates that remnant anisotropy is highly directional and can go unnoticed if not searched for. It also states that the shear process is essentially symmetrical with respect to the plane [110].
The shear and recovery process induces the creation of free volume, falling into the category of rejuvenation processes discussed in the literature. Counterintuitively, the process of free volume creation is accompanied by a reduction of the distance of the first maximum of the pair distribution function g (r), indicating a decrease of the most likely distance (mode) between first neighbors. However, this decrease in mode is accompanied by an increase of the width of the first peak, increasing the standard deviation of the distribution of distances between first neighbors. This explains the apparent contradiction between the increase in the volume and reduction of the most probable distance between first neighbors. Simultaneously, the second coordination sphere is more homogenous after the deformation and recovery process. As a result, medium range order is increased.
The discrepancy between the results obtained between Cu13Ni34Pd53 and Zr46Cu46Al8 may be due to the fact that the potential used in the simulations of Zr46Cu46Al8 is more representative of the behavior of metallic glasses. As a result, we hypothesize that the presence of remnant anisotropy after mechanical deformation could be a general feature in metallic glasses.
The computational cost of this study was very high, since it was necessary to simulate million-atom systems to avoid that results were dependent on the size of the simulation box.
