The size-dependence of compressive mechanical properties and serrated-flow behavior of Ti-based bulk metallic glass

Abstract

In this work, the size-dependence on the compressive mechanical and serrated-flow behaviors of Ti-based bulk metallic glass (BMG) was systematically investigated. The results demonstrated that the compressive plasticity of the BMGs was greatly improved from 1.0 ± 0.6% to 2.4 ± 0.5% with the specimen diameter reducing from 4 to 2 mm, while the fracture strength decreased from 2070 ± 40 to 1870 ± 31 MPa, indicating a trend of smaller and softer characteristics. Meanwhile, the Weibull distribution analysis of the strength and plasticity indicated that when the specimen diameter was increased from 2 to 4 mm, the Weibull strength modulus (mσ) decreased from 83.5 to 46.6 and the Weibull plasticity modulus (mε) decreased from 0.70 to 0.36, revealing a more discrete distribution of both the strength and the plasticity with the increase in diameter. The average shear-band velocity (ASBV), which was calculated based on the stick–slip dynamics, indicated an increasing trend with the increase in specimen diameter, while the shear-band instability index (SBI) presented a similar increasing trend. Meanwhile, the serrated-flow analysis revealed that the BMG specimen with smaller size possessed a lower average stress drop and a larger Weibull modulus of stress drop, which is the substantial cause for the considerable malleability in smaller specimen. Moreover, the fitting result for the cumulative probability distributions of the stress drop indicated that the stress drops in smaller specimens exhibit better coincidence.