title: Tuned critical avalanche scaling in bulk metallic glasses.
abstract: Ingots of the bulk metallic glass (BMG), Zr64.13Cu15.75Ni10.12Al10 in atomic percent (at. %), are compressed at slow strain rates. The deformation behavior is characterized by discrete, jerky stress-drop bursts (serrations). Here we present a quantitative theory for the serration behavior of BMGs, which is a critical issue for the understanding of the deformation characteristics of BMGs. The mean-field interaction model predicts the scaling behavior of the distribution, D(S), of avalanche sizes, S, in the experiments. D(S) follows a power law multiplied by an exponentially-decaying scaling function. The size of the largest observed avalanche depends on experimental tuning-parameters, such as either imposed strain rate or stress. Similar to crystalline materials, the plasticity of BMGs reflects tuned criticality showing remarkable quantitative agreement with the slip statistics of slowly-compressed nanocrystals. The results imply that material-evaluation methods based on slip statistics apply to both crystalline and BMG materials.
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Antonaglia
authors.affiliation: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
authors.forename: Xie
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
authors.forename: Gregory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schwarz
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wraith
authors.affiliation: Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China.
authors.forename: Junwei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.affiliation: University of Science and Technology, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
authors.forename: Peter K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Liaw
authors.affiliation: Retired.
authors.forename: Jonathan T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Uhl
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
authors.forename: Karin A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Dahmen