Impact of pressure on plastic yield in amorphous solids with open structure

Plasticity in amorphous silica is unusual: The yield stress decreases with hydrostatic pressure, in contrast to the Mohr-Coulomb response commonly found in more compact materials such as bulk metallic glasses. To better understand this response, we have carried out molecular dynamics simulations of plastic response in a model glass with open structure. The simulations reproduce the anomalous dependence of yield stress with pressure and also correctly predict that the plastic response turns to normal once the material has been fully compacted. We also show that the overall shape of the yield surface is consistent with a quadratic behavior predicted assuming local buckling of the structure, a point of view that fits well into the present understanding of the deformation mechanisms of amorphous silica. The results also confirm that free volume is an adequate internal variable for a continuum scale description of the plastic response of amorphous silica. Finally, we also investigate the long-range correlations between rearrangement events. We find that strong intermittency is observed when the structure remains open, while compaction results in more homogeneous rearrangements. These findings are in agreement with recent results on the effect of compression on the middle range order in silicate glasses and also suggest that the well-known volume recovery of densified silica at relatively low temperatures is in fact a form of aging.