Strengthening bulk metallic glasses with minor alloying additions

Cu47Ti34Zr11Ni8, (Cu47Ti34Zr11Ni8)99Si and (Cu47Ti34Zr11Ni8)99Al bulk metallic glass were prepared by copper mold casting method, and the thermal stability, mechanical properties and microstructures of them were studied. With minor alloying of Si and Al additions, the glass transition temperature (Tg), crystallization temperature (Tx1) and temperature interval of supercooled liquid region ΔTx (=Tx1-Tg) and reduced glass transition temperature (Trg) were proved to be changed from 672 K, 734 K, 62 K, 0.575 to 691 K, 752 K, 61 K, 0.592 and to 681 K, 729 K, 48 K, 0.590, respectively. The results indicate that the glass-forming ability (GFA) are improved with minor alloying additions. And the bulk glasses also exhibits high three point-bending flexural strength. Because of the additions of Si and Al, three point-bending flexural strength and flexural modulus of the bulk glass change from 2 350 MPa, 102 GPa to 3 260 MPa, 102 GPa and 2 970 MPa, 108GPa respectively. The obvious strengthening is due to the appearance of the medium-range ordered regions with a size of 2–5 nm under the high-resolution TEM image. The reason that the mixed amorphous and nanocrystalline phases caused by minor alloying of Si and Al additions, is that Si or Al is the third kind of elements, which are different from other constituting elements, and there are a strong bonding and atoms size effects between constituting elements, which cause the glass-forming ability (GFA) and the bulk metallic glasses strength improving.