Precursors to plastic failure in a numerical simulation of CuZr metallic glass

We deform, in pure shear, a thin sample of Cu₅₀Zr₅₀ metallic glass using a molecular dynamics simulation up to, and including, failure. The experiment is repeated ten times in order to have average values and standard deviations. Although failure occurs at the same value of the externally imposed strain for the ten samples, there is significant sample-to-sample variation in the specific microscopic material behavior. Failure can occur along one, two, or three planes, located at the boundaries of previously formed shear bands (SBs). These SBs form shortly before failure. However, well before their formation and at external strains where plastic deformation just begins to be significant, non-affine displacement organizes itself along localized bands. The SBs subsequently form at the edges of these non-affine-displacement-bands, and present an alternating rotation-quadrupole structure, as found previously by Şopu et al (2017 Phys. Rev. Lett. 119 195503) in the case of a notched sample loaded in tension. The thickness of SBs is roughly determined by the available plastic energy. The onset of shear banding is accompanied by a sharp increase in the rate of change of the rotation angle localization, the strain localization, and the non-affine square displacement.