Mechanical properties of simple computer glasses

Abstract

Recent advances in computational glass physics enable the study of computer glasses featuring a very wide range of mechanical and kinetic stabilities. The current literature, however, lacks a comprehensive data set against which different computer glass models can be quantitatively compared on the same footing. Here we present a broad study of the mechanical properties of several popular computer glass forming models. We examine how various dimensionless numbers that characterize the glasses' elasticity and elasto-plasticity vary under different conditions --- in each model and across models --- with the aim of disentangling the model-parameter-, external-parameter- and preparation-protocol-dependencies of these observables. We expect our data set to be used as an interpretive tool in future computational studies of elasticity and elasto-plasticity of glassy solids.