An assessment of Fe-Nb-B melts using the two-state liquid model

Abstract

Amorphous alloys of the (Fe-Co-Ni)-(Cr-Mo-Nb)-B system are promising materials to supply the demands for higher wear resistance components in the petrochemical industry. Since the development of the CALPHAD method, the development of new metallic alloys has been accompanied by thermodynamic modelling and calculations. The prediction of the formation of amorphous alloys requires special care with the modeling of the liquid and or an amorphous phase. As a initial stage in the more complex system, the basic Fe-Nb-B ternary system was selected. In order to predict the stability and tendencies of transformations of these amorphous alloys, the Fe-Nb-B system was reassessed using Ågren's two-state model to describe the liquid phase. The results of the present assessment show very good agreement with the recently reported stable phase diagram. Furthermore, the use of the two-state model for the liquid is more accurate and physically consistent when evaluating transformations from supercooled liquid, as shown it the present work.