The effect of thermal history on structure and mechanical properties of Cu64Zr36 metallic glass

•The combined effect of cooling rate and liquid temperature on the microstructure and mechanical properties are systematically investigated.•The local atomic structure as well as the mechanical properties strongly depend on the cooling rate.•Due to relatively high cooling rates adopted in this work, the effect of liquid temperature has little influence on the formation of MGs.•At a lower cooling rate, the formed MGs have higher average local five-fold symmetry, with more icosahedrons, denser atomic packing and lower energy. It is well known that the thermal history can affect the local atomic structure and thus may possibly affect the mechanical properties of metallic glasses (MGs). In spite of considerable efforts on the thermal history, its effect on the microstructure remains controversial at the present time. In this work, the combined effect of cooling rate and liquid temperature on the microstructure and mechanical properties are systematically investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. With the decrease of cooling rate, the polyhedrons with higher local five-fold symmetry is greatly enhanced, and thereby the ultimate compressive strength is increased. However, the effect of liquid temperature on the formation of MGs is negligible, mainly due to the relatively high cooling rates adopted. This work may increase our understanding in the effect of thermal formation history on the formation of MGs and provide a promising avenue for improving the mechanical properties.