Elastic interactions of plastic events in strained amorphous solids before yield

It has been widely accepted that the plastic events of amorphous solids after mechanical yield belong to a highly correlated avalanche state. However, whether the plastic events before yield are correlated or not is still unsettled, leaving their interactions largely unexplored. In this paper, by means of atomistic simulations, typical Cu50Zr50 metallic glasses, as the model system, are sheared under athermal quasistatic limit to study these plastic events. The statistical analysis of both stress drops and waiting times reveals that plastic events before yield are in the correlated avalanche state and the interactions among them are mediated by the robust elasticity. The temporal correlation analysis of the nonaffine displacement fields further reveals that the elastic interactions are short-lived strong but long-standing weak, which results in the fractal morphology of potential energy landscape. By introducing vibrational modes to explore plastic events, we clearly exhibit the way how the elastic interactions organize the Eshelby-type shear transformations into avalanched plastic events. The correlation matrix, with its component being the dot product of the vibrational modes at different configurations, is defined to trace the evolution of vibrational modes during elastic deformation and across plastic events. Three reasons accounting for the robust elasticity are identified: (i) the limited destruction of plastic events on global elasticity, (ii) the persistent hard spots embedded in elastic matrix, and (iii) the self-recovery of elastic matrix during elastic deformation. Our results clarify the atomic-scale nature of both elastic deformation and plastic instabilities before yield in amorphous solids, providing fundamental information for the development of elastoplastic constitutive models.

Automated summary

By conducting atomistic simulations on Cu50Zr50 metallic glasses, this study reveals that the plastic events before yield are correlated and mediated by robust elasticity. The temporal correlation analysis of the nonaffine displacement fields further demonstrates the short-lived strong but long-standing weak nature of elastic interactions. These findings provide fundamental insights into the atomic-scale nature of both elastic deformation and plastic instabilities, contributing to the development of elastoplastic constitutive models.