Notable internal thermal effect on the yielding of metallic glasses

We revealed a notable internal thermal effect on the yielding of metallic glasses with the aid of a newly developed microscopic model focusing on the interaction of incipient localized shear events. It is shown that at the high strain rate, localized heating in metallic glasses instead of localized structure change plays the dominant role in shear softening. Using the modified cooperative shear model with the ingredient of the thermal effect, we captured the sudden decrease of the strength of metallic glasses after a critical strain rate, which was found in experiments. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3700923]