Predicting plastic flow events in athermal shear-strained amorphous solids

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to predict the onset of plastic failure in amorphous solids under shear strain using only nonlinear elastic moduli measurements, bridging elastic properties and plastic failure prediction.

Contribution

It demonstrates that nonlinear elastic moduli can be used to accurately predict the strain at which amorphous solids undergo plastic deformation, linking reversible elastic properties to irreversible failure.

Findings

Nonlinear elastic moduli can predict plastic failure points.

Elastic properties and plastic failure are more closely related than previously thought.

The method provides a new way to anticipate material failure without observing plastic deformation directly.

Abstract

We propose a method to predict the value of the external strain where a generic amorphous solid will fail by a plastic response (i.e. an irreversible deformation), solely on the basis of measurements of the nonlinear elastic moduli. While usually considered fundamentally different, with the elastic properties describing reversible phenomena and plastic failure epitomizing irreversible behavior, we show that the knowledge of some nonlinear elastic moduli is enough to predict where plasticity sets in.