Residual elastic strain induced by equal channel angular pressing on bulk metallic glasses

Abstract We performed equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) on bulk metallic glasses with the composition of (La0.5Ce0.5)65Co25Al10 and Zr52.5Cu17.9Ni14.6Al10Ti5. The analysis of the high energy X-ray diffraction patterns indicates that anisotropic strain is present in the processed samples. We also determined the nature and magnitude of strain in the sample after thermo-mechanical creep, i.e. after homogenous deformation. Comparison between diffraction patterns indicates that the strain anisotropy in the ECAP processed samples is due to an elastic strain and is not induced by bond anisotropy as in creep samples. We conclude that the apparent elastic strain is brought on by a residual stress originating from the shear bands and that the deformation in ECAP experiment is inherently inhomogeneous.