Study of Bulk Amorphous and Nanocrystalline Alloys Fabricated by High-Sphericity Fe(84)Si(7)B(5)C(2)Cr(2) Amorphous Powders at Different Spark-Plasma-Sintering Temperatures

The new generation of high-frequency and high-efficiency motors has high demands on the soft magnetic properties, mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of its core materials. Bulk amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys not only meet its performance requirements but also conform to the current technical concept of integrated forming. At present, spark plasma sintering (SPS) is expected to break through the cooling-capacity limitation of traditional casting technology with high possibility to fabricate bulk metallic glasses (BMGs). In this study, Fe(84)Si(7)B(5)C(2)Cr(2) soft magnetic amorphous powders with high sphericity were prepared by a new atomization technology, and its characteristic temperature was measured by DSC to determine the SPS temperature. The SEM, XRD, VSM and universal testing machine were used to analyze the compacts at different sintering temperatures. The results show that the powders cannot be consolidated by cold pressing (50 and 500 MPa) or SPS temperature below 753 K (glass transition temperature T(g) = 767 K), and the tap density is only 4.46 g·cm(−3). When SPS temperature reached above 773 K, however, the compact could be prepared smoothly, and the density, saturation magnetization, coercivity and compressive strength of the compacts increased with the elevated sintering temperature. In addition, due to superheating, crystallization occurred even when the sintering temperature was lower than 829 K (with the first crystallization onset temperature being T(x1) = 829 K). The compact was almost completely crystallized at 813 K, resulting in a sharp increase in the coercivity of the compact from 55.55 A·m(−1) at 793 K to 443.17 A·m(−1). It is noted that the nanocrystals kept growing in size as the temperature increased to 833 K, which increased the coercivity remarkably but showed an enhanced saturation magnetization.