Dense suspensions and supercooled liquids: dynamic similarities.

Dense suspensions and supercooled, glass-forming, fragile Lennard-Jones liquids near T(g) should display similar relaxational and rheological behavior based on dynamical heterogeneities (actually, clusters of correlated, mobile particles embedded among the ordinary, bulk particles). Near structural arrest, we expect the shear-thinning onset to vanish as the inverse bulk-beta relaxation time. Connection to mechanical properties of granular media near random loose packing is briefly considered.

Microstructure evolution and plasticity in Zr-based glass-forming alloys.

The microstructure characteristic scale, in partially devitrified Zr-based glass-forming alloys, is examined in the light of classical nucleation and growth theory. It is then related to the high-ductility properties of these materials. Stabilization of the icosahedral phase under addition of isoelectronic elements, as evidenced in recent experiments, is discussed on a qualitative basis.