Ni-based B-Fe-Ni-Si-Ta bulk metallic glasses designed using cluster line, minor alloying, and element substitutions

The formation of Ni-based B-Fe-Ni-Si-Ta bulk metallic glasses is explored in this work. The alloy compositions are determined by using a combination of the cluster line approach, the minor alloying strategy and the substitutions of similar elements. The basic B-Ni-Si ternary compositions are first determined by the intersection points of different cluster lines, B-Ni cluster to Si and Ni-Si cluster to B, and then are minor-alloyed with 4 at.% Ta. Finally Fe is added to partially substitute for Ni to further improve the glass-forming abilities. Bulk metallic glasses with diameters of 3 mm are formed at compositions [B17.7(Ni1−xFex)70.5](Si7.8Ta4), x = 0.35-0.45, which also exhibit good mechanical and corrosion-resistant properties. Furthermore, these compositions can be expressed using our cluster-plus-glue-atom model as [B2(Ni,Fe)8]1(Si,Ta)1.33. BMGs with compositions satisfying [B2(Ni,Fe)8](Si, Ta)1 are also obtained.