Published July 2017 | public
Journal Article

3D nano-architected metallic glass: Size effect suppresses catastrophic failure

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Abstract

We investigate the mechanical behavior of 3D periodically architected metallic glass nanolattices, constructed from hollow beams of sputtered Zr-Ni-Al metallic glass. Nanolattices composed of beams with different wall thicknesses are fabricated by varying the sputter deposition time, resulting in nanolattices with median wall thicknesses of ∼88 nm, ∼57 nm, ∼38 nm, ∼30 nm, ∼20 nm, and ∼10 nm. Uniaxial compression experiments conducted inside a scanning electron microscope reveal a transition from brittle, catastrophic failure in thicker-walled nanolattices (median wall thicknesses of ∼88 and ∼57 nm) to deformable, gradual, layer-by-layer collapse in thinner-walled nanolattices (median wall thicknesses of ∼38 nm and less). As the nanolattice wall thickness is varied, large differences in deformability are manifested through the severity of strain bursts, nanolattice recovery after compression, and in-situ images obtained during compression experiments. We explain the brittle-to-deformable transition that occurs as the nanolattice wall thickness decreases in terms of the "smaller is more deformable" material size effect that arises in nano-sized metallic glasses. This work demonstrates that the nano-induced failure-suppression size effect that emerges in small-scale metallic glasses can be proliferated to larger-scale materials by the virtue of architecting.

Additional Information

© 2017 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Received 17 March 2017, Revised 8 May 2017, Accepted 9 May 2017, Available online 17 May 2017. R.L. acknowledges financial support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant DGE-11444. J.R.G. acknowledges financial support from the U.S. Department of Energy through her Early Career Grant DE-SC0006599 and DE-SC0016945. The authors thank Lucas Meza for helpful discussions.

Additional details

Created:
August 21, 2023
Modified:
October 25, 2023