title: Fatigue-induced damage in Zr-based bulk metallic glasses.
abstract: In the present work, we investigate the effect of "fatigue" on the fatigue behavior and atomic structure of Zr-based BMGs. Fatigue experiments on the failed-by-fatigue samples indicate that the remnants generally have similar or longer fatigue life than the as-cast samples. Meanwhile, the pair-distribution-function (PDF) analysis of the as-cast and post-fatigue samples showed very small changes of local atomic structures. These observations suggest that the fatigue life of the 6-mm in-diameter Zr-based BMG is dominated by the number of pre-existing crack-initiation sites in the sample. Once the crack initiates in the specimen, the fatigue-induced damage is accumulated locally on these initiated sites, while the rest of the region deforms elastically. The results suggest that the fatigue failure of BMGs under compression-compression fatigue experiments is a defect-controlled process. The present work indicates the significance of the improved fatigue resistance with decreasing the sample size.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
authors.forename: Chih-Pin
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Chuang
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Wojciech
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dmowski
authors.forename: Gong-Yao
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Matt
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Freels
authors.forename: Peter K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Liaw
authors.forename: Ran
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhang