Quantifying the Features of an Amorphous Solid's Local Yield Surface

Abstract

In two-dimensional Lennard-Jones glasses, mechanical probing reveals that local yield surfaces are dominated by regions with a positive second derivative of the yield stress with respect to the loading angle. Each feature corresponds to a shear transformation zone and a characteristic non-affine displacement field at yield. Most features are well described by a combined Schmid-Mohr-Coulomb criterion parameterized by a weak-plane orientation, a critical stress, and a pressure sensitivity. The resulting parameter statistics clarify how the onset of plastic flow is governed by the population of discrete yielding features encoded in the amorphous structure.