DETERMINATION OF ACTIVATION-ENERGY SPECTRA OF IRREVERSIBLE STRUCTURALRELAXATION OF METALLIC GLASSES USING NONISOTHERMAL STRESS-RELAXATION DATA

A new method for determination of activation energy spectra of irrever sible structural relaxation of metallic glasses using the kinetics of torque relaxation under linear heating has been developed. The method is simple, has acceptable accuracy, and lacks some limitations inheren t to the known spectrum reconstruction methods. An experiment was carr ied out to determine the real structural relaxation spectrum of a Go-b ased metallic glass by this method. The form of this spectrum can indi cate that plastic flow under intensive structural relaxation is realiz ed via a set of atomic rearrangements in regions with 'faulty' and 'go od' short range order. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.