1.

Introduction and Motivation

Amorphous metals (metallic glasses) are metallic alloys which, unlike the crystalline materials, do not have ordered atomic structure. They are formed by extremely rapid cooling of the order of millions of degrees per second. Therefore, crystals cannot be formed and glassy state of material is produced. In 1960, the first amorphous metal was reported by Klement et al at Caltech by rapid quenching of Au-Si alloy. Metallic glass formation requires extremely rapid quenching, furthermore their thermal conductivity is lower than crystalline materials. Therefore, they can be produced only in certain forms (e.g. foils, wires) with thickness limited to less than 100 micrometres. However, more recently, some alloy compositions have been explored with ever lower critical cooling rates to produce thick layers (over 1 millimetre) and these alloys are called bulk metallic glasses (BMG). They have numerous unique properties by virtue of their amorphous structure. Few of them are, a very high yield strength ranging between 1840 2100 MPa, high yield strain( ) , a high elastic modulus (E) in the range of 47 102 GPa and non-negligible toughness which depends on alloy composition. Vitreloy (Zirconium based alloy), a new metallic alloy, has tensile strength twice as that of high grade titanium, which was developed as a part of Department of Energy and NASA research of new aerospace materials in 1992. Depending upon the temperature, stress and glass condition the plastic deformation is classified as homogeneous and inhomogeneous deformation. At low stresses and the

temperatures exceeding half the glass transition temperature ( ), the metallic glasses undergo viscous flow under which plastic strain is distributed uniformly in different volume elements within the material. This type of deformation is termed as homogeneous deformation. Additionally, at high stresses and temperatures below , resulting plastic

strain, which most likely occurs at the site of free volume concentrated in narrow shear bands, is distributed non-uniformly. This localised deformation is termed as inhomogeneous deformation. This phenomenon has become an interesting area of research. Due to its' superior properties, BMG have promising future with potential applications ranging from sports equipment to MEMS. Therefore, unique properties of BMG was motivation for this study wherein the aim is to understand fracture behaviour and development of the plastic zone ahead of crack tip and stress field variation in near crack tip in BMG specimen.

2. Literature review
Schuh et al. (2007) gave detailed insight into microscopic behaviour which results into formation of shear bands during plastic deformation. The atomic bonds in the metallic glasses are of metallic character, which can easily accommodate strain. The relative energy required for local rearrangement of atoms is higher than that of crystalline materials. In 1979 Argon proposed mechanism of local arrangement of atoms called 'Shear transformation zone' (STZ). STZ are local clusters of atoms which accommodate shear strain. Atomistic simulation on number of composition suggest that STZ deformation is common in all metallic alloys regardless of structure, size and energy scale of STZ. Unlike crystalline materials, STZ deformation is not a structural deformation. Rather it is transient in nature which is characterised in local volume. Site of higher free volume leads to activation of STZ which in turn accommodates local shear, accompanied by dilatation. The free volume adequately describes the structure of deformation in metallic glasses. Hence the plastic deformation is described by accumulation of local strain in shear bands which accumulate through the operation of STZ and redistribution of the free volume. Since the dilatation is accompanied with plastic deformation in metallic glasses, the effect of hydrostatic stress is needed to be taken into account. Subramanya et al. (2005) carried out the 3D finite element study of mixed mode (I&II) crack tip field in elastic plastic solid using boundary layer formulation under small scale yielding condition. They have investigated the structure of stress field and established the validity of 2D plane stress and plane strain approximations. The evolution of plastic zone in term of its size and shape with increasing load has been discussed as well. They conclude that in general, the plane stress conditions prevail at a distance from crack front exceeding half the plate thickness, although it could be slightly smaller for predominantly mode II loading. Subramanya et al. (2006) performed the finite element study of 3D crack tip fields in pressure sensitive plastic solids (such as polymers or metallic glasses) under mode I, small scale yielding condition. They have used the Extended Drucker-Prager yield model, assuming material to obey a small strain condition. The effect of pressure sensitivity and plastic dilatancy on evolution of plastic zone and stresses is systematically studied. They have found

that pressure sensitivity enhances the plastic strain and crack opening displacements, which leads to significant drop in hydrostatic stress all along the 3D crack front. Anand & Su (2004) have developed a constitutive model for elastic viscoplastic material to capture the response of to pressure sensitivity and plastic dilatancy. They have developed a finite deformation, Mohr-Coulomb type constitutive theory which captures the response of metallic glasses accurately. The deformation of amorphous metallic glasses is studied by implementing constitutive model in a finite element program. They concluded that the numerical simulations of an amorphous metallic glass in tension, compression, stripbending and indentation qualitatively capture the major features of corresponding results from physical experiment available in literature. Tandaiya et al. (2007) studied the stationary crack tip fields in metallic glasses to understand the effect of factors, which controls the crack tip plasticity and imparts the toughness to material. The finite element analysis is performed under plane strain small scale yielding condition. The constitutive model developed by Anand & Su, which accounts for pressure sensitivity and plastic strain localised into discrete shear bands is employed to capture the behaviour of this material. They have observed the influence of internal friction factor on plastic zone, stress and deformation field and concluded that higher friction parameter enhances the plastic strain, which substantially decreases the opening stress which in turn leads to larger plastic zone and enhances the fracture toughness of material. For the material the plastic deformation is localised in form of shear bands. In this study simulation of shear bands are performed which qualitatively matches with those in the experiments. Tandaiya et al. (2010) developed an efficient algorithm to examine the pressure sensitivity and plastic dilatational response of bulk metallic glasses. This algorithm is based on Mohr Coulomb type material which accounts the finite deformation framework. The accuracy and performance is verified by several benchmark problems, like in single element test, where a single hexahedral finite element is subjected to uniaxial tension and compression. The plot of true stress versus logarithmic strain represents the behaviour of bulk metallic glasses. 1. As expected from pressure sensitivity model, the yield stress in compression is higher than that in tension.

2. The rapid strain softening followed by perfectly plastic behaviour, which is a typical feature of BMGs.

Fig. 1 Plot of True stress vs. Log. Strain

3. Issues of investigation and objectives

The study regarding the fracture behaviour, stress fields and plastic deformation near crack tip in bulk metallic glasses is confined to plane strain condition. Which shows that plastic deformation is localised in shear band are assumed to occur on six potential slip planes. But the actual stress field near the crack tip are essentially three dimensional in nature, which are the conditions between plane strain and plane stress. The real condition of plastic deformation which are assumed to occur in slip planes is unknown. The variation of stress fields from plane strain (middle plane) to plane stress (free surface) condition is not established. The evolution of plastic zone in term of size and shape on different planes through the thickness is required to be recognised to know the actual fracture behaviour of bulk metallic glasses. As the practical BMG structures are 3D in nature and to exploit the

unique properties of this material, the analysis in practical conditions (i.e. 3D) is required to be done. Based on above argument following are the objectives of the study1. Mode I and mixed mode (I&II) simulation of crack tip fields in 3D under small scale yielding using boundary layer formulation of fracture mechanics. 2. Simulation of 3D structure of shear band patterns near the crack tip in 3D SSY boundary layer formulation under mode I and mixed mode (I&II) loading and its' comparison with experimental observations. 3. Comparative study of crack tip fields in SSY and in actual fracture specimens of different geometries: Dominance of elastic-plastic crack tip fields in actual specimens (of different geometries) in 2D and 3D. 4. Simulation of 3D structure of shear band patterns near the crack tip in actual fracture specimens of different geometries and its comparison with experimental results.

4. Report on present investigation 4.1 Material model Mohr coulomb model, considering finite deformation, recently proposed by AS[], is the basis of constitutive equations used in this study. The deformation gradient is given by multiplicative decomposition of elastic and plastic part as (1) The elastic part of deformation is assumed negligible. And the plastic flow is assumed to be occurred by shearing accompanied by dilatation relative to some slip system. These slip systems with conjugate pair are defined relative to principal direction of stress (denoted by unit vectors ), lying in planes formed by ( , where ), ( ) and ( ). The

direction of slip system is represented by make an angle of { } (

denotes slip system number, which

is the angle of internal friction), with maximum principal

stress direction in that plane. On the potential slip system, the resolved shear stress and compressive normal traction is given by

and respectively, where is normal to slip plane for

} is Krichhoff

th slip system and

stress. The slip rates developed by conjugate pair are equal, since they have equal resolved shear stresses and normal compressive tractions. The flow rule for plastic part of spatial velocity gradient is given by where, by where, { } (3) is strain rate sensitivity parameter. In called cohesion is stress like , it represents [( ) ( ) ], (2)

is plastic shearing rate and

is dilatancy function. The viscoplastic law is given

is reference plastic shearing rate and And

the limit as

is the friction parameter,

internal variable which represent the yield strength in pure shear. When the associated flow rule. The dilatancy parameter volumetric strain So as { as
( )

is given as function of plastic

} , it varies smoothly from to . ,where

(4)

changes from

to

The plastic volumetric strain , which defined as

is associated

by change in local free volume of amorphous material, which governs their plastic deformation. The evolution of is governed by

The cohesion

is assumed to vary with

as

(6)

It is evident from equation (4)-(6), that

would increase monotonically from virgin phase . On other hand, would smoothly

initially and eventually saturate to equilibrium value of decrease from

and become stable at value of

the above model is

incorporated in general purpose non-linear code ABAQUS/Standard through written user material subroutine UMAT. Fully implicit backward Eular approach is used for integration of constitutive equation. The objective of this study is to examine the stress field and shape to plastic zone in mode I near crack tip under small scale yielding condition by assuming a uniform value of initial cohesion for entire domain.

4.2 Modelling and analysis aspects To investigate the behaviour of 3D crack tip field under small strain yield (SSY) condition boundary layer formulation is used. 4.2.1 Model details In this study 3D circular disc of radius and thickness containing crack at the

along one of its radii is examined (refer Fig.). The crack has initial notch of diameter

crack root. The plate is located in X-Y plane and the crack front is along the Z axis. The ratio of radius to thickness of plate is chosen to be 40, ensuring the plastic zone remains

well inside the plate boundary even if the plastic zone size increased five times the thickness of plate. The plate radius is 4000 times to initial crack root notch diameter. The disc is modelled using finite element mesh containing 8-noded isoparametric hexahedral element. To alleviate the effects of mesh locking due to near plastic incompressibility, the hybrid element formulation feature, available in ABAQUS, is employed.

Fig.1 Finite element mesh used in simulation showing full domain

Fig.2 Finite element mesh near notch tip in enlarged view Due to symmetry arising because of Mode I condition, only one fourth of the plate (i.e. one half of the thickness of upper half plane) is modelled by applying appropriate boundary conditions. The notch surface is assumed to be traction free. The mesh contains 10 layers of elements through half of the thickness of plate. The layers become thinner towards the free surface in order to capture large stress variations of stress on free surface. Each layer composed of 80 rings of element, which coarsened very fast while moving along the radius from crack tip to periphery. The mesh is well refined at crack tip with smallest size of element in radial direction is about between to . The element size in direction is

. The mesh comprised of total 48640 elements and 54923 nodes.

The in-plane displacement components based on leading term of mode I is prescribed on the outer boundary, which are given by

For 3D,

in the aforementioned equations. .

The load is applied gradually with increasing value of stress intensity factor

4.2.2 Choice of material parameter The material parameters, which are employed in constitutive equation to study the behaviour of crack tip field in amorphous solid are as follows: Young modulus Initial cohesion Poissons ratio = 0.36

Friction parameter Pressure sensitivity parameter Strain rate sensitivity exponent Since the value of strain rate sensitivity exponent is small, the response of material is rate

independent. The variations of stress are shown in term of Cauchy stress components normalised by initial value of cohesion , which is stress like quantity.

5. Results and discussion

With increasing load, the evolution of plastic zone in terms of shape and size is studied. The maximum extend of plastic zone ) with corresponding normalized

stress intensity factor is recorded. As the load was applied gradually with increasing value of

stress intensity factor

, this shows that the load level is well characterised by the ratio of

maximum extend of plastic zone to the thickness of plate. Accordingly, three load levels with corresponding value of Load level High
(a)

) is defined ) 1.36 1 .1

Moderate Low

5.1 Comparison of stress field in BMG and Elastic model

(b)

(c)

Fig. 4 Comparison of stress field in BMG and Elastic model at high load level at at

) = 1.36 (a)

Angular variation of Hydrostatic and tangential stress (b) Radial variation of Hydrostatic and tangential stress at ) = 1.36 and (c) Variation of stress through thickness at ) = 1.36 and

Unlike the crystalline materials, BMGs are devoid of grain boundaries. These grain boundaries are treated as barrier in shear band propagation. So in absence of such barriers, the shear band propagates readily and cause failure without any discernible plastic deformation. It is observed that at room temperature, under tensile loading most of the BMG deforms elastically. Thus these materials are assumed to be elastic. But depending upon the loading condition, stress and temperature level, large scale of plastic deformation is also observed. Thus appropriate investigation must be carried out to justify this material before accounting this assumption. Hence here the analyses are conducted on both BMG and elastic material considering the same model, loading and boundary conditions. The variations of stresses are plotted around the crack tip in all dimensions to show, how both materials varied in terms of stresses. Fig.4(a) show the angular variation of hydrostatic and tangential stresses, both stresses in both materials show the decreasing stress from ahead of crack tip but the magnitude and trend both are different. In Fig.4(b), for elastic material, the hydrostatic and tangential stress are limiting to higher magnitude at whereas in BMG these values . So the

start from zero. Fig.4(c) shows variation of stress through thickness at

above trend of stresses in all dimensions invalidate the assumption to consider the BMG as elastic material. 5.2 Comparisons of stress field and plastic strain value in 2D plane strain and 3D The stress field and plastic strain value are compared between 3D and 2D plane strain condition. And then the 3D and 2D plane strain variation are itself compared at two

different load levels, first at low load and second at high load corresponding to the value of and respectively. As the load increases from low to high,

stresses and plastic strain value undergo the transition from plane strain to plane stress. Because with increase in load, the plastic zone size increases, pertaining to plane strain condition throughout the thickness. At low load level the 2D plane strain condition should well match with that at middle plane. But here the meshing of the model through the thickness is done with 10 layers of elements, which are coarsening from free surface to midplane. So while calculating the stresses and plastic strain on mid-plane, the integration points are far away from the that plane and interpolated values are calculated, which are different from the actual. Hence the difference in magnitude is observed in 2D plane strain and 3D mid-plane stress and plastic strain values at low load level, however the trends are same. 5.2.2 Angular stress variation

Fig.5 Angular variation of plastic strain in 3D for different planes and 2D plane strain (a) (b)

At low load the trend of plastic strain value for plane strain is in good agreement with that of mid-plane and intermediate plane. These show the flat peak at decrease from load shifted at ahead of crack tip. to . For free surface steep peak appear at which gradually , which at the high

from back to ahead of crack tip and mid-plane value steeply decreases

Fig.6 Angular variation of hydrostatic stress in 3D for different planes and 2D plane strain (a) (b)

Fig.7 Angular variation of tangential stress in 3D for different planes and 2D plane strain (a) (b) In fig.6 At low load, the plane strain and mid-plane show the flat peak which decreases while moving toward the back of crack tip. At high load the width of flat peak reduces, which shows the transition from plane strain to stress and at free surface the stress become uniform around the tip. In Fig.7 it show similar trend for mid plane as that in hydrostatic, flat peak reduce and gradually decrease from front to back of crack tip, which show transition. The plane strain condition matches well with mid-plane value at low load. 5.2.3 Radial variation in theta=0

Fig.7 Radial variation of plastic strain in 3D for different planes and 2D plane strain (a) (b)

Fig.8 Radial variation of hydrostatic in 3D for different planes and 2D plane strain (a) (b)

Fig.9 Radial variation of tangential stress in 3D for different planes and 2D plane strain (a) (b) In Fig.7 at low load, the variation of plastic strain on different plane on 3D can easily be seen by different curves. Whereas at high load the transition from plane strain to plane stress can easily be noticed. And the plastic strain value decrease very sharply comparatively at low

load. In Fig.8 at low load the plane strain show good agreement with 3D mid-plane value and show the peak near to crack tip. The stress value decrease very steeply while moving along the radial direction. At high load the peak is shifted in radial direction. The difference between curves on plane strain and 3D planes are evident of transition at high load. In Fig.9 the trend followed by tangential stress is same as that of hydrostatic at low load as well as ar high load. 5.2.5 Thickness variation

Fig. 10 Variation through the thickness at plastic strain (b) hydrostatic stress (c) tangential stress at

and

(a)

The variation of stresses and plastic strain through thickness at the different normalised radial distance from crack front are plotted. The values of come well inside the plastic zone at are choosen such that they , which is

. In fig. 10(a) for

far from crack front, the plastic strain is almost constant through the thickness. While for other two values of the , it show some gradient from mid-plane to free surface.in Fig10(b)

5.2.6 Contour of plastic zone At lowload

At moderate

At high load

Fig. 3 Plastic zone contour in plane strain condition

Fig.4 Plastic zone contour at middle plane in 3D

Fig.5 Plastic zone contour at free surface in 3D

Fig.6 Plastic zone contour through the thickness (upper plane is free surface)