Simple model for plastic deformation and slip avalanches in bulk metallic glasses

ORAL

Abstract

Ductile bulk metallic glasses are known to deform under shear in an intermittent way with slip-avalanches detected as acoustic emission and serrations in the stress-strain curves. In many such materials, power laws govern the statistics of these avalanches. A basic micromechanical model for deformation of solids with only one tuning parameter is introduced. The model predicts the observed stress-strain curves, acoustic emissions, related power spectra, and power-law statistics of slip avalanches, including the dependence of the cutoff on experimental parameters with a continuous phase transition from brittle to ductile behavior. Material independent (``universal'') predictions for the power-law exponents and scaling functions are extracted using the mean-field theory and renormalization group tools. The results agree with recent experimental observations on deformed bulk metallic glasses.

*JA and KD gratefully acknowledge NSF grants DMR-1005209 and DMS-1069224, XX, JQ, and PKL gratefully acknowledge NSF grants DMR-0231320, CMMI-0900271, CMMI-1100080, and DMR-0909037 .

–

Authors

  • Karin Dahmen

    • University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
    • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    • Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

  • James Antonaglia

    • University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

  • Junwei Qiao

    • Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Peoples Republic of China

  • Xie Xie

    • The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

  • Peter Liaw

    • The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

  • Jonathan Uhl

    • University of Illinois