Effect of temperature on the fracture surface morphology of Ti- and Zr-based bulk metallic glasses: exploring correlation between morphology and plasticity

Abstract

According to previous studies on the fracture surface morphologies of bulk metallic glasses, the stable crack growth region width and vein pattern size increase with the plasticity at room temperature. In the present work, the fracture surface morphologies of Ti- and Zr-based bulk metallic glasses bent over a wide temperature range (0.1–0.8 glass transition temperature) are systematically analyzed. According to our finding, the stable crack growth region width increases while the vein pattern size decreases as the ductility improves by varying temperature. This observation is in contrast to the common thought that the ductility is proportional to the stable crack growth region width and vein pattern size simultaneously. Moreover, the vein pattern size and shear offset width are found to be almost equal at a specific temperature. Furthermore, smaller vein pattern size and shear offset width reduce shear band instability and, consequently, enhance the ductility.