On small-scale inhomogeneous plastic flows in Zr-based bulk metallic glass during nanoindentation

Abstract

Recently, nanoindentation is widely used to evaluate small scale mechanical phenomena of amorphous alloys which show very different deformation behaviours from those of crystalline materials. In this study, to gain new insights of the mechanical behaviour in bulk metallic glasses, a series of nanoindentation experiments were performed on Zr-based bulk metallic glasses with geometrically different indenter tips such as Berkovich, cube-corner and spherical indenter tips. Each indenter tip is expected to induce different stress field under the indenter, and thus comparison of the results might provide somewhat new and valuable information about small scale mechanical behaviours and properties of bulk metallic glasses. Results are discussed in terms of prevailing ideas for shear-band-ruled deformation behaviours in the glasses.