Impact of pressure on plastic yield in amorphous solids with open structure.

Plasticity in amorphous silica is unusual: The yield stress decreases with hydrostatic pressure, in contrast to the Mohr-Coulomb response commonly found in more compact materials such as bulk metallic glasses. To better understand this response, we have carried out molecular dynamics simulations of plastic response in a model glass with open structure. The simulations reproduce the anomalous dependence of yield stress with pressure and also correctly predict that the plastic response turns to normal once the material has been fully compacted. We also show that the overall shape of the yield surface is consistent with a quadratic behavior predicted assuming local buckling of the structure, a point of view that fits well into the present understanding of the deformation mechanisms of amorphous silica. The results also confirm that free volume is an adequate internal variable for a continuum scale description of the plastic response of amorphous silica. Finally, we also investigate the long-range correlations between rearrangement events. We find that strong intermittency is observed when the structure remains open, while compaction results in more homogeneous rearrangements. These findings are in agreement with recent results on the effect of compression on the middle range order in silicate glasses and also suggest that the well-known volume recovery of densified silica at relatively low temperatures is in fact a form of aging.

Structure and topology of soda-lime silicate glasses: implications for window glass.

The structural and topological properties of soda-lime silicate glasses of the form (1-2x)SiO2-xNa2O-xCaO are studied from classical molecular dynamics using a Buckingham type potential. Focus is made on three compositions (x = 6%, 12%, and 18%) which are either silica-rich or modifier-rich. We compare the results to available experimental measurements on structural properties and find that the simulated pair correlation function and total structure factor agree very well with available experimental measurements from neutron diffraction. The detail of the structural analysis shows that the Na and Ca coordination numbers tend to evolve with composition, and with increasing modifier content, changing from 5.0 to 5.6 and from 4.0 to 5.0 for Ca and Na, respectively. The analysis from topological constraints shows that the picture derived on a heuristic basis using classical valence rules remains partially valid. Ultimately, typical elastic phases are identified from the application of rigidity theory, and results indicate that the 6% system is stressed-rigid, whereas the modifier-rich composition (18%) is flexible. These results receive support from a full analysis of the vibrational density of states showing the low-energy bands at E < 20 meV increase as the system becomes flexible, providing another indirect signature of the presence of rigid to flexible transitions in this archetypal glass. Consequences for window glass are discussed under this perspective.

Non-Debye normalization of the glass vibrational density of states in mildly densified silicate glasses.

The evolution of the boson peak with densification at medium densification rates (up to 2.3%) in silicate glasses was followed through heat capacity measurements and low frequency Raman scattering. It is shown that the decrease of the boson peak induced by densification does not conform to that expected from a continuous medium; rather it follows a two step behaviour. The comparison of the heat capacity data with the Raman data shows that the light-vibration coupling coefficient is almost unaffected in this densification regime. These results are discussed in relation to the inhomogeneity of the glass elastic network at the nanometre scale.