Eur. Phys. J. B (2012) 85: 304
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2012-30317-6

Regular Article

Atomistic response of a model silica glass under shear and pressure

¹ Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée et Nanostructures, Université Lyon 1 CNRS, UMR 5586, Domaine Scientifique de la Doua, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France
² École Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Saint-Etienne, Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes, UMR 5313 CNRS/ECL/ENISE, 58 rue J. Parot, 42023 Saint-Étienne Cedex 2, France
³ Surface du Verre et Interfaces, CNRS/Saint-Gobain, UMR 125, 39 quai Lucien Lefranc, 93303 Aubervilliers Cedex, France

^a e-mail: Boris.Mantisi@univ-lyon1.fr

Received: 13 April 2012
Received in final form: 21 June 2012
Published online: 5 September 2012

Abstract

The Mechanical Response of a Model Silica Glass is studied extensively at the submicrometer scale, with the help of atomistic simulations. The analysis of the response to a hydrostatic compression is compared to recent experimental results. The irreversible behaviour and the variation of intertetrahedral angles is recovered. It is shown that the atomistic response is homogeneous upon compression, in opposition with the localization along shear bands occuring during shear deformation with constant volume. Moreover, the Bulk Modulus anomaly is interpreted as due to a succession of such homogeneous but irreversible atomic rearrangements.