Yielding behavior of glasses under asymmetric cyclic deformation

Abstract

We consider the yielding behaviour of a model glass subjected to asymmetric cyclic shear deformation, wherein the applied strain varies between 0 and a maximum value $\gamma_{\rm max}$, and study its dependence on the degree of annealing of the glass and system size. The yielding behaviour of well annealed glasses (unlike poorly annealed glasses) display striking differences from the symmetric case, with the emergence of an intermediate strain regime with substantial plasticity but no yielding. The observed behaviour is satisfactorily captured by a recently proposed model. For larger system sizes, the intermediate strain regime narrows, leading to a remarkable reversal of yield strain with annealing.