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Updated: Apr 21, 2026

Methods of Ex Situ and In Situ Investigations of Structural Transformations: The Case of Crystallization of Metallic Glasses
Published on: June 7, 2018
Microscopic description of flow defects and relaxation in metallic glasses
1Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
Abstract:
The anelastic relaxation behavior of amorphous Al86.8Ni3.7Y9.5 was characterized in prolonged, quasistatic measurements, up to 1.1×10(8) s. The size-density distribution of potential shear transformation zones was determined from the data. We derive an expression for the distribution, based on a free-volume criterion for an atomic cluster being a potential shear transformation zone. The model is shown to be consistent with experiment.
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