The process of structural relaxation in disordered solids subjected to
repeated tension-compression loading is studied using molecular dynamics
simulations. The binary glass is prepared by rapid cooling well below the glass
transition temperature and then periodically strained at constant volume. We
find that the amorphous system is relocated to progressively lower potential
energy states during hundreds of cycles, and the energy levels become deeper
upon approaching critical strain amplitude from below. The decrease in
potential energy is associated with collective nonaffine rearrangements of
atoms, and their rescaled probability distribution becomes independent of the
cycle number at sufficiently large time intervals. It is also shown that
yielding during startup shear deformation occurs at larger values of the stress
overshoot in samples that were cyclically loaded at higher strain amplitudes.
These results might be useful for mechanical processing of amorphous alloys in
order to reduce their energy and increase chemical resistivity and resistance
to crystallization.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figure
