Combined Effects of Annealing and Cyclic Loading on Structural Rejuvenation and Mechanical Properties of CuZr Metallic Glass: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Abstract Structural rejuvenation is one of the key topics in the field of metallic glasses (MGs). In this work, we evaluated the combined effects of annealing treatment and elastic cyclic loading to discover pathways for promoting structural rejuvenation and improving the mechanical properties in the MGs. Using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, it was revealed that the sole cyclic loading led to the increase of rejuvenation degree; however, a saturated state was observed upon the 40th cycle. On the other side, the sample exposed to the combined treatment exhibited a slight relaxation at the first step of cycling process and then a sharp rejuvenation degree was detected in the material. The thorough analyses indicated that the change in the fraction of coordination polyhedrons at the relaxation stage was the main reason for the extra rejuvenation in the sample exposed to the combined treatments. The results also suggest that the combination of rejuvenation treatments improves the magnitude of rejuvenation in the amorphous alloys. It should be noted that the increase of rejuvenation in the alloying systems accompanied with a reduction in the tensile strength and an enhancement in the homogenous plastic deformation.