Role of Alloying Composition on Mechanical Properties of CuZr Metallic Glasses During the Nanoindentation Process

This paper aims to indicate the role of alloying composition on the nanomechanical properties of metallic glasses (MGs). For this purpose, the molecular dynamics simulation of nanoindentation process was performed for a wide range of Cu–Zr glassy compositions. The results indicated that the yielding event enhanced with the rise of Cu content; however, there existed an optimized composition for the maximum hardening effect in the system. The investigation on the evolution of shear bands also showed that the formation of pile-ups around the indentation site and the propagation of dominant shear bands into the glassy structure occurred in the Cu-rich MGs. On the other side, the increase in Zr content led to the creation of a net-like shear arrangement under the indented site. Moreover, the Voronoi tessellation analysis indicated that the decreasing/increasing rate of polyhedron types during the indenting process strongly relied on the alloying compositions. Graphical Abstract