Atomistic Simulations of Metallic Glass and Nanoglass

A promising remedy to the failure of metallic glasses (MGs) by shear banding is the use of a dense network of glass-glass interfaces, i.e., a nanoglass (NG). Here we investigate the effect of grain size (*d*) on the failure of NG by performing molecular dynamics simulations of tensile-loading on CuZr NG with *d*=5-15 nm. Our results reveal a drastic change in deformation mode from a single shear band (*d*~15–10 nm), to cooperative shear failure (*d*~10-5 nm), to homogeneous superplastic flow (*d*£5 nm). Our results suggest that grain size can be an effective design parameter to tune the mechanical properties of MGs.

Work with Paulo S. Branicio, Shailendra P. Joshi, Roberto Ballarini.