Effects of pressure on structure and mechanical property in monatomic metallic glass

In this work we studied the effects of pressure on the local structures and mechanical properties of pure iron metallic glasses based on molecular dynamics simulations. It is found that, at a quenching rate of 1 × 1013 K/s, glassy states are obtained for pressure not > 20 GPa and crystalline phases are obtained at 25 GPa. Voronoi analysis indicates that the local structure of glassy iron changes with pressure, and the degree of local fivefold symmetry in the quenched systems decreases as the pressure increases. Compression test results indicate a negative correlation between the pressure and the yield strength, with the strength of the glass obtained at 20 GPa being 0.56 GPa (or about 10%) lower than that at 0 GPa. This study sheds light on the understanding of pressure-induced changes of local structure and mechanical property of monatomic metallic glasses.