Analysis of plastic flow in an amorphous soap bubble raft by the use of an inter-bubble potential

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Abstract
The changes in potential energy, free volume, and internal shear strain in clusters undergoing shear transformations during the shearing of amorphous soap bubble rafts have been analysed by means of a generalized inter-bubble potential initially developed by Nicolson and by Lomer. A unique inverse correlation was found between the activation free energy barriers of transformations and the initial state of free volume of the transforming sites. Two separate branches of correlation, one for concentrated shear transformations and the other for diffuse shear transformations have been identified. When proper scaling between the inter-bubble potential and the appropriate close-packed metal potential is applied to the results, the distribution of activation free energies found from the soap bubble model gives remarkably good agreement with the experimentally measured distributions in metallic glasses obtained by Argon and Kuo earlier. The inverse correlation, found between activation free energy and free volume, has important implications with respect to shear relaxations near a glass transition and the glass transition process itself.

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