Figure 3

Complementary cumulative distribution functions (CCDFs), or survival functions, of stress drops for samples of Zr_64.13Cu_15.75Ni_10.12Al₁₀, 2 mm in diameter and 4 mm in length, compressed at various constant strain rates at 298 K.

Larger stress drops occur more frequently in samples that are strained more slowly, which agrees with the model's prediction¹⁹. The proposed model predicts a scaling form for the stress-drop probability-distribution functions (PDFs), which scale as S^−κ times a universal scaling function dependent on the quantity, SΩ^λ, of Equation (1) in the main text. Appropriately integrating the predicted form of the PDFs, the CCDFs also show the functional dependence on SΩ^λ and the power-law dependence in S can be recast by a change of variables to a power-law dependence in Ω. The inset shows the CCDFs and stress-drop sizes rescaled by appropriate Ω-dependent scaling expressions, which effectively reveals the scaling function, C′(x), of Equation (2) in the main text. This scaling “collapse” was quantitatively verified for the exponent values of κ = 1.42 ± 0.20 and λ = 0.22 ± 0.02. With these exponents and the function, C′(x), shown in the inset, we can predict the serration statistics at other strain rates, see Equation (2).