A simple operational approach to the analysis of creep and structural relaxations in an amorphous alloy

Amorphous metals generally yield at very high stresses compared to their crystalline counterparts, are ductile and exhibit non-hardening plastic flow. Consequently, metallic glasses will have good wear resistance and be useful wherever this property is important, such as in seals and switch contacts. One can take advantage of the wear properties of these materials by making use of current surface modification techniques, such as ion implantation or laser melting, to produce amorphous films on crystalline substrates. In order to understand and predict the wear behavior of thin amorphous films on crystalline substrates a simple constitutive model for plastic flow in the metallic glass determined from bulk mechanical property measurements is developed. If sufficiently simple in form, this model can be used as part of a more complex model that characterizes the layered structure and the loading configuration (of Metglas 2826). 18 ref.--AA