Molecular dynamics simulation of mechanical response of Cu₅₀Zr₅₀ metallic glass under double shock loading

In real applications, materials are often subjected to multiple shock loadings, under which the mechanical response is rather complicated and needs in-depth studies. In this paper, molecular dynamics simulations of Cu₅₀Zr₅₀ metallic glass (MG) that has broad application prospects in various fields under double-shock loading have been carried out in order to uncover the deformation mechanism of MG in the dynamic process. By varying the velocity and the time interval from the first shock, we found that the double shock can lead to different phenomena such as recompaction, second spallation, uncompaction, or non-spallation. We further investigated the characteristics of these different phenomena through analyzing the damage area, stress distribution, density, and temperature in the shock processes. It was found that the void collapse caused high local stress and high temperature. We also found that the shear deformation resistance of the recompaction region cannot be recovered after recompaction through the quantitative statistics of the icosahedral clusters. Moreover, the material softening caused by high temperature in the recompaction region was the main reason for second spallation. In addition, a small second shock velocity could not induce the recompaction and a small interval time between two shocks inhibited the occurrence of the first spallation. The insights gained in this study contribute to a better understanding of the dynamic response of MGs under double-shock loadings.