title: Loading-rate-independent delay of catastrophic avalanches in a bulk metallic glass.
abstract: The plastic flow of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) is characterized by intermittent bursts of avalanches, and this trend results in disastrous failures of BMGs. In the present work, a double-side-notched BMG specimen is designed, which exhibits chaotic plastic flows consisting of several catastrophic avalanches under the applied loading. The disastrous shear avalanches have, then, been delayed by forming a stable plastic-flow stage in the specimens with tailored distances between the bottoms of the notches, where the distribution of a complex stress field is acquired. Differing from the conventional compressive testing results, such a delaying process is independent of loading rate. The statistical analysis shows that in the specimens with delayed catastrophic failures, the plastic flow can evolve to a critical dynamics, making the catastrophic failure more predictable than the ones with chaotic plastic flows. The findings are of significance in understanding the plastic-flow mechanisms in BMGs and controlling the avalanches in relating solids.
authors.affiliation: Advanced Manufacturing Technology Research Centre, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: S H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Advanced Manufacturing Technology Research Centre, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: K C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Microstructures, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Advanced Manufacturing Technology Research Centre, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.|School of Materials Science and Engineering, Liaoning University of Technology, Jinzhou, 121001, China.
authors.forename: F F
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Advanced Manufacturing Technology Research Centre, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematics and Statistics, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China.
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Microstructures, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: K A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Dahmen
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Liaw