Microstructural evolution of shear bands formation of metallic glasses under different loading conditions and strain rates.

• The microstructural evolution of shear band is found to follow the four-stage law. • The increase of strain rate delays the initiation and retards the propagation of DSB. • The clusters in the regions of strain localization are not dominated by the DSB. The shear bands (SBs) evolution of Cu 50 Zr 50 metallic glasses (MGs) by the uniaxial loading under different strain rates are investigated on the temporal and spatial scales using the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The stress-strain curve shows a corresponding relation to the microstructure parameter curve in the form of four-stage, together with a synchronized evolution of multiple shear bands. During the propagation of the dominate shear band (DSB), the rearrangement of global microstructure is induced by the different transformation of three categories of clusters located in different zones. The synchronized evolutions of the microstructure, the deformation and the mechanical property are found to be less affected by loading condition or strain rate. However, with the increase of strain rate, the initiation and propagation of the DSB are observably retarded. As a consequence, the fracture mode of the MGs presents a change from a sliding along the DSB to a uniform deformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]