Effects of Zr Content on the Bending Property and Crystallization Behavior of Ductile Zr-Based Bulk Metallic Glasses

Abstract

In this study, the effects of Zr content on the bending property, non–isothermal and isothermal crystallization kinetics of high–Zr–based BMGs were investigated. The BMGs exhibit high bending strength and their bending plasticity enhances with increasing Zr content, which is due to more free volume with high–Zr–content. During continuous heating, the crystallization phases for Zr66 and Zr70 BMGs are Zr2Cu and Zr2Ni phases. Zr70 alloy exhibits the highest activation energies for glass transition and crystallization because of the sluggish diffusion of large Zr atoms. Under isothermal condition, the average Avrami exponent of Zr66 alloy modeled by the JMA equation is about 2.6, implying a diffusion–controlled three dimensional crystallization growth with an increasing nucleation rate. The average Avrami exponent of 2.0 for Zr70 alloy indicates a diffusion–controlled three dimensional crystallization growth with a decreasing nucleation rate, which can be attributed to its higher activation energy for crystallization.