Homogeneous viscous flow behavior of a Cu–Zr based bulk metallic glass composites

In this paper, Cu40Zr44Ag8Al8 bulk metallic glass composites (BMGCs) consisting of various volume fraction of nanocrystals embedded in the amorphous matrix was synthesized by controlled annealing treatment of an as-cast BMGCs. The high temperature compression behaviors of the BMGCs were characterized in the supercooled liquid region. Results show that the flow stresses keep increasing after an initial decrease with extension of the annealing time. With annealing the values of activation volume Vact is determined to be increasing from 283.6216 Ǻ3 to 305.553 Ǻ3, suggesting that the jump of atoms is a cooperative process during the high-temperature deformation. Flow behavior of the BMGCs annealed for less than 8 min transform from Newtonian to non-Newtonian dependant on the stain rate and can be successively fitted by the visco-plasticity model. Fitting results indicate that deformation behaviors of these samples are governed by homogeneous flow of the amorphous matrix and indeed determined by the viscosities in the Newtonian flow stage. However, the BMGCs annealed for 8 min exhibit a non-Newtonian flow over the entire compression process and fail to be fitted by the visco-plasticity model. Micrographs of the sample reflect an impinged structure, indicating that high temperature deformation behavior of the BMGCs with high volume fractions of particles is indeed controlled by that of a backbone of particles.