A Series of Zr-Based Bulk Metallic Glasses with Room Temperature Plasticity

Anhui Cai; Dawei Ding; Yong Liu; Hong Wu; Weike An; Guojun Zhou; Yun Luo; Yongyi Peng

doi:10.3390/ma9060408

A Series of Zr-Based Bulk Metallic Glasses with Room Temperature Plasticity

Materials (Basel). 2016 May 25;9(6):408. doi: 10.3390/ma9060408.

Authors

Anhui Cai^{1

2

3}, Dawei Ding⁴, Yong Liu⁵, Hong Wu⁶, Weike An⁷, Guojun Zhou⁸, Yun Luo⁹, Yongyi Peng¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ College of Mechanical Engineering, Hunan Institute of Science and Technology, Yueyang 414000, China. cah1970@sohu.com.
² State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. cah1970@sohu.com.
³ Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. cah1970@sohu.com.
⁴ Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. dingdawei@iphy.ac.cn.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. yonliu@mail.csu.edu.cn.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. wuhong927@126.com.
⁷ College of Mechanical Engineering, Hunan Institute of Science and Technology, Yueyang 414000, China. Anweike12@163.com.
⁸ College of Mechanical Engineering, Hunan Institute of Science and Technology, Yueyang 414000, China. gjzhoumike@163.com.
⁹ College of Mechanical Engineering, Hunan Institute of Science and Technology, Yueyang 414000, China. luoyun810812@yahoo.com.cn.
¹⁰ School of Physics and Electronics, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. pengyongyi@126.com.

Abstract

A group of plastic Zr-Al-Ni-Cu bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) with low Zr content was developed and their thermal and mechanical properties were investigated. The results show that these Zr-based BMGs have a single crystallization event for all heating rates in the studied temperature region. The glass transition temperature T_g decreases with increasing Zr content for all heating rates. There are two melting procedures for the BMGs whose Zr content is less than 52 at %, while three melting procedures for the other Zr-based BMGs. The second melting procedure is split into two melting procedures for Zr_52.5Al_12.2Ni_12.6Cu_22.7 and Zr₅₃Al_11.6Ni_11.7Cu_23.7 BMGs, while the first melting procedure is split into two melting procedures for the other BMGs. The activation energy decreases with increasing sensitivity index β for the studied Zr-based BMGs. The plastic strain ε_p is in the region of 0.2%-19.1% for these Zr-based BMGs. Both yield strength σ_y and fracture strength σ_f are smallest for Zr₅₅Al_8.9Ni_7.3Cu_28.8 BMG whose ε_p is largest among all studied Zr-based BMGs and reaches up to 19.1%. In addition, the mechanism for the large difference of the plasticity among the studied Zr-based BMGs is also discussed.

Keywords: Zr-based bulk metallic glass; mechanical property; plasticity.