Dynamic response of Cu46Zr54 metallic glass to high-strain-rate shock loading: Plasticity, spall, and atomic-level structures

We investigate dynamic response of Cu46Zr54 metallic glass under adiabatic planar shock wave loading (one-dimensional strain) with molecular dynamics simulations, including Hugoniot (shock) states, shock-induced plasticity, and spallation. The Hugoniot states are obtained up to 60 GPa along with the von Mises shear flow strengths, and the dynamic spall strengths, at different strain rates and temperatures. The spall strengths likely represent the limiting values achievable in experiments such as laser ablation. For the steady shock states, a clear elastic-plastic transition is identified (e.g., in the shock velocity-particle velocity curve), and the shear strength shows strain softening. However, the elastic-plastic transition across the shock front displays transient stress overshoot (hardening) above the Hugoniot elastic limit followed by a relatively sluggish relaxation to the steady shock state, and the plastic shock front steepens with increasing shock strength. The local von Mises shear strain analysis is used to characterize local deformation, and the Voronoi tessellation analysis, the corresponding local structures at various stages of shock, release, tension and spallation. The plasticity in this glass, manifested as localized shear transformation zones, is of local structure rather than thermal origin, and void nucleation occurs preferentially at the highly shear-deformed regions. The Voronoi and shear strain analyses show that the atoms with different local structures are of different shear resistances that lead to shear localization (e.g., the atoms indexed with < 0,0,12,0 > are most shear-resistant, and those with < 0,2,8,1 > are highly prone to shear flow). The dynamic changes in local structures are consistent with the observed deformation dynamics.