Improvement of the Corrosion Resistance of Steel Wires by Manufacturing Continuous Bulk Metallic Glass-Coated Steel Wires

To improve the corrosion resistance of steel wires, a uniform thin layer of bulk metallic glass alloy with different compositions of (Zr41.2Ti13.8Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5)100-xNbx (x=0, 3, 5, 8 at%) was coated on the surface of Q195 steel wires by a newly developed continuous coating process. Phase analysis results show that the coating is mainly composed of metallic glass alloy and some other intermetallics. The potentiodynamic polarization tests indicate that the steel wires with metallic glass coating show passivation behavior, and have higher pitting potential and lower corrosion current density than Q195 steel wires. With the increment of Nb content, the passivation region of the metallic glass-coated steel wires become wider while pitting potential is increased. As shown in composition analysis results, it may be attributed to the addition of Nb which has properties of easy passivation and stabilizing the passivation elements of Zr and Ti