Isothermal kinetics approach to investigate the structure relaxation of amorphous alloys

• Derived isothermal free volume relaxation kinetics expressions of amorphous system.
• Proposed a new method to research the amorphous alloy structure relaxation.
• Qualitatively obtained the structure relaxation parameters of Al85Ni8Y5Co2 amorphous alloy.
• Suggesting chemical methodology to study the structure relaxation of amorphous alloys.

The isothermal relaxation kinetics equations of free volume was derived based on the defect relaxation kinetics expressions. The equations were used to fit the isothermal thermal analysis curves of Al85Ni8Y5Co2 amorphous alloy at different temperature and giving out several crucial parameters associated with the structure relaxation kinetics and metastable structure for example the kinetic coefficient and the fragile strength coefficient. The fitted parameters indicate excellent consistence with the previously reported data, manifesting isothermal thermal analysis based on the kinetics equations presented in this paper is applicable to investigate the metastable structure and structure relaxation of amorphous alloys, providing a novel method more convenient than the traditional viscosity monitoring method.