Free Volume Evolution in Bulk Metallic Glass during High Temperature Creep

Abstract

ABSTRACTMetallic glasses lack long-range translational symmetry and have excess volume trapped within their amorphous structure, which has a direct bearing on their physical properties including deformation characteristics. Moreover, the trapped excess free volume is directly correlated to the defect concentration facilitating the possibility to model the temperature and time dependence of the free volume changes during creep as a trade off between defect generation and annihilation. Using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis the residual free volume of a metallic glass can be characterised based on the glass transition peak height (Δcp). In the present work constant strain rate tests were carried out at the ‘onset’ (Tgon = 685 K) and ‘point of inflection’ (Tgp = 705 K) of the calorimetric glass transition to study the time dependent flow behaviour in Zr55Cu30Al10Ni5 bulk metallic glass. Modelling based on DSC analysis and positron lifetime spectroscopy on samples creep deformed to different plastic strain values corroborate the stress decrease after the peak stress (‘stress overshoot’) occurring in bulk metallic glasses with increasing plastic strain to be associated with a small increase in free volume.