The effect of Al substitution on thermal and mechanical properties of Fe-based bulk metallic glass

In this paper, a systematic investigation about the effect of Al substitution on properties of Fe–Cr–Mo–Er–C–B amorphous material, including glass-forming ability (GFA), thermal properties, and mechanical properties was presented. It was found out by X-ray diffraction (XRD) that the glass-forming ability decreased with the increase of Al, when Al reached 7 at%, fully amorphous specimen was not obtained. With regard to thermal parameters, such as glass transition temperature Tg, crystallization temperature Tx, supercooled liquid region ΔTx, and reduced glass temperature Trg were checked by differential scanning calorimeter. A rather wide supercooled liquid region more than 40 K was found. During compression test, results showed Al substitution slightly improved the fracture strength from 3.4 to 3.7 GPa. The fracture morphology was observed by scanning electron microscopy. Micrographs showed the same cleavage-like fracture in spite of different Al substitution.