Study of the glass forming ability of Cu₆₀Zr_32,5Ti_7,5 alloy by molecular dynamics

This article presents the results of molecular dynamics simulation of Cu₆₀Zr_32.5Ti_7.5 alloy through the open source code LAMMPS. Amorphous samples were produced by quenching the metallic molten from 2300K to 200K at cooling rates of 50, 5 and 0.5K/ps. The pair distribution functions of both the liquid and solid were calculated and compared at different temperatures. The topology of short-range order was analyzed using the Voronoi tessellation method, which determined the presence of Cu-centered icosahedral clusters as the prevailing in the amorphous state at 300K. Moreover, the sample was submitted to uniaxial tensile tests at strain rate of 10ps^-1, in order to investigate the mechanical behavior of the metallic glass. The result of the stress-strain curve showed that applied loads lead to the plastic regime. However, the presences of shear bands, typical in the experimental testing, were not observed. Moreover, the evolution of the viscosity above the glass transition temperature and the fragility of the alloy were determined. The solidus and liquidus temperatures were determined and a good agreement with experimental data was found. (author)