Glass-Forming Ability and Thermal Properties of Al(70)Fe(12.5)V(12.5)X(5)(X = Zr, Nb, Ni) Amorphous Alloys via Minor Alloying Additions

The Al(70)Fe(12.5)V(12.5)Ni(5), Al(70)Fe(12.5)V(12.5)Zr(5) and Al(70)Fe(12.5)V(12.5)Nb(5) alloys were prepared via mechanical alloying. The influence of Zr, Nb or Ni addition on the glass-forming ability of Al-Fe-V amorphous alloys have been investigated. The structure of Al(70)Fe(12.5)V(12.5)Ni(5) was amorphous and Al(70)Fe(12.5)V(12.5)Zr(5) was not completely amorphous by transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry. Different criteria were used to evaluate the influence of the addition of alloy elements on the Glass-forming ability. The Al(70)Fe(12.5)V(12.5)Ni(5) amorphous alloys exhibits higher glass-forming ability and activation energies of crystallization. Comparison of the effective atomic size ratio and mixture enthalpy on the glass-forming ability of these amorphous alloys demonstrates that the effective atomic size ratio value becomes more significant than the values of mixture enthalpy.