In this paper, the compressive behaviors of Zr-based bulk metallic glass (BMG) were experimentally studied under different testing conditions. To deeply reveal the inherent deformation mechanisms, numerical study was systematically conducted to analyze the shear banding evolution in BMGs, and the effect of testing machine stiffness, contact friction, and sample parallelism on the compressive ductility was therefore elucidated. Among them the effect of contact friction was carefully studied experimentally and the inherent deformation mechanisms was numerically analyzed in terms of the formation of shear bands. Free-volume theory was incorporated into ABAQUS finite element method code as a user material subroutine UMAT. The numerical method was firstly compared with the corresponding experimental results, and then parameter analyses were performed to discuss the impacts of testing conditions on the malleability of the BMG samples. The present work will shed some light on the interpretation of failure mechanisms in BMGs under different loading conditions.

In this paper, numerical study was systematically conducted to analyze the shear banding evolution in bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) with various notches subjected to the uniaxial compression, and the relation between the notched configurations and compressive malleability was therefore elucidated. Free volume was used to be an internal state variable to depict the shear banding nucleation, growth and coalescence in the BMGs with the aid of free volume theory, which was incorporated into ABAQUS finite element method code as a user material subroutine. The present numerical procedure was firstly verified by comparing with the existing experimental data, and then parameter analysis was performed to discuss the impacts of notch shape, notch size, notch orientation, and notch configuration on the plastic deformability of notched samples. The present modeling will shed some light on the failure mechanisms and the toughening design of notched BMG structures in the engineering applications.