Deformation of metallic glasses with special emphasis in supercooled liquid region

Upon deforming a metallic glass at low temperatures, shear tends to localize and this leads to a brittle behavior. However, in the high temperature, and particularly in the supercooled liquid region, homogeneous deformation begins to take place. A bulk amorphous Zr 10Al 5Ti 17.9Cu 14.6Ni alloy was observed to exhibit the Newtonian behavior at low strain rates but becomes non Newtonian at high strain rates in the supercooled liquid region. Structures of the amorphous material, both before and after deformation, were examined using X ray diffraction and high resolution electron microscopy. Results showed the presence of nanocrystallites in the deformed samples. Thus, the non Newtonian behavior is attributable to the concurrent crystallization of the amorphous structure during deformation. A mechanistic model is presented to interpret the observed non Newtonian result. A phenomenological approach is also used to develop the deformation map for bulk metallic glasses in the supercooled liquid region.