Electron diffraction was used to study the local atomic structure of Cu49Hf42Al9 metallic glasses (MGs).The amorphous nature of the MG was fully retained after the compression test.The partial radial distribution functions (PRDFs) of the MG structure obtained from the atomic model using reverse Monte Carlo and density functional theory optimization display that the peaks of the first nearest-neighbour distances for Cu-Cu,Hf-Cu and Hf-Hf atomic pairs were located at 2.56 (A),2.78 (A) and 3.23 (A),respectively.The wide distribution of PRDF for Hf-Hf atomic pair explained the high plasticity of the material.