Effect of nickel reinforcement on electrochemical and wear behaviour of spark plasma sintered Fe-based metallic glass composites

Abstract

Iron-based metallic glass composites reinforced with crystalline nickel ranging from 2.5 to 10 vol% were fabricated using spark plasma sintering. The effects of nickel reinforcement on microstructure, corrosion, and wear behavior of the metallic glass composites were investigated. While all composites exhibited lower corrosion resistance compared to monolithic metallic glass, the composites with lower reinforcement content (2.5 and 5 vol% Ni) showed some passivation effects in HCl solution. Also, as nickel is significantly softer than the metallic glass matrix, the hardness of sintered composites progressively decreased with increasing content of nickel. However, despite their lower hardness, the composites reinforced with lower nickel content (2.5 and 5 vol% vol%) exhibited improved wear resistance due to toughening effect. The wear resistance deteriorated with further increase in reinforcement content above 5 vol% Ni. The results show that Fe-based metallic glass composites with lower reinforcement content (2.5 to 5 vol% Ni) are promising in applications where optimum corrosion and wear performance is desired.