Meso-mechanical constitutive model of bulk metallic glass matrix composites

Abstract Based on the existing experimental observations and extended Mori-Tanaka (M-T) method, a new meso-mechanical constitutive model is proposed to predict the monotonic tensile or compressive deformation of bulk metallic glass (BMG) matrix composites with toughening phases. In the proposed model, the deformation behaviors of the BMG matrix and toughening phase are described by using the extended free volume model and unified visco-plastic model, respectively, and corresponding algorithmic tangent operators are also derived. The proposed model is verified by predicting the monotonic tensile or compressive stress-strain responses of the BMG composites with an in-situ dendrite and different ex-situ toughening particles, respectively. Comparison of predicted results and experimental ones demonstrates that the proposed meso-mechanical constitutive model describes both the strain hardening and softening features of the BMG composites reasonably. The simulations agree with the experiments well.