The objective of this thesis is to study the fracture behavior of bulk metallic glasses. For this purpose, detailed finite element investigation of the mode I and mixed mode (I and II) stationary crack tip fields under plane strain, small scale yielding conditions is carried out. An implicit backward Euler finite element implementation of the Anand and Su constitutive model [Anand, L. and Su, C., 2005, J. Mech. Phys. Solids 53, 1362] is used in the simulations. The effects of internal friction (μ), strain softening, Poisson's ratio (ν) and elastic mode mixity (Me) on the near-tip stress and deformation fields are examined. The results show that under mode I loading, a higher μ leads to a larger normalized plastic zone size and higher plastic strain level near the notch tip, but causes a substantial decrease in the opening stress. The brittle crack trajectories and shear band patterns around the notch are also simulated. An increase in ν reduces the extent of plastic zone and plastic strain levels in front of the notch tip. The results from mixed mode simulations show that increase in the mode II component of loading dramatically increases the maximum plastic zone extent, lowers the stresses and significantly enhances the plastic strain levels near the notch tip. Higher μ causes the peak magnitudes of tensile tangential stress to decrease. The implications of the above results on the fracture response of bulk metallic glasses are discussed. The possible variations of fracture toughness with mode mixity predicted by employing two simple fracture criteria are examined. Finally, mixed mode (I and II) fracture experiments on a Zr-based bulk metallic glass are performed. It is found that the fracture toughness increases with Me and Jc under mode I is higher than that under mode II loading by a factor of 4. The operative failure mechanism and fracture process zone size are discerned based on observations of incipient crack growth and fractographs. Lastly, a fracture criterion is proposed which predicts the experimentally observed variation of fracture toughness with mode mixity.

No description available.

Amorphous and nanostructured Al-based alloys have attracted significant interest owing to their promising properties, including high strength combined with low density. Unfortunately, the production of these advanced materials is limited to powders or ribbons with thickness of less than 100 micrometers due to the reduced glass forming ability of the Al-based alloys. Powder metallurgy through pressure-assisted sintering is a good solution to overcome the size limitation of these materials. In this thesis, Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 glassy powders were consolidated into high-strength bulk materials by hot pressing. The sintering behavior and the microstructural evolution during hot pressing were analyzed as a function of temperature. The results reveal that, through the careful control of the sintering temperature, the combined devitrification and consolidation of the amorphous Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 powders can be achieved, leading to bulk samples with the desired hybrid microstructure and with excellent room temperature mechanical properties. Beside the sintering temperature, the microstructural state of the starting material is critical in order to obtain bulk samples with the desired microstructure and related properties. Consequently, the variation of the initial structural state of the powders as well as of their thermal stability and phase evolution during heating may be used for further tuning the mechanical performance of the hot pressed Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 samples. In order to analyze this aspect, ball milling was used to vary the crystallization behavior of the gas-atomized Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 glassy powder. The influence of milling on microstructure and thermal stability was investigated as a function of the milling time. The results show that the traces of crystalline phases present in the as-atomized powder decrease gradually with increasing the milling time. The thermal stability of the fcc-Al primary phase increases while the thermal stability of the intermetallic phases decreases with increasing milling. Moreover, significant improvement in hardness occurs after milling, which is attributed to the amorphization of the residual crystalline phases present in the as-atomized powder. These finding demonstrate that milling is an effective way to change the initial structural state of the powders and to control the thermal stability of the material. The effect of the microstructural state of the starting material on the mechanical properties of the consolidated samples was investigated in detail. For this, the milled Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 glassy powders were consolidated into bulk specimens by hot pressing. These materials exhibit superior mechanical properties than the samples produced from the as-atomized powder: record high yield strength of 1.7 GPa and fracture strength exceeding 1.8 GPa. This is combined with a plastic strain of about 4 %, Young’s modulus of 120 GPa and density of 3.75 g/cm3. A bimodal microstructure consisting of coarse grained and fine grained regions was achieved in the hot pressed samples by properly controlling the milling process. The exceptionally high strength is attributed to the increased volume fraction of the fine regions, whereas the plastic deformation is favored by the coarse regions, which are able to hinder crack propagation during loading. In addition, the fracture toughness is also improved by the existence of the coarse regions. The tribological properties of the Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 bulk samples were also evaluated. The wear resistance of the bulk samples produced from the milled powder is enhanced with respect to the specimens fabricated from the as-atomized powder, and both alloys exhibit improved wear properties compared to pure aluminum and Al88Si12. Abrasive wear is the main mechanism for these alloys. Finally, the corrosion resistance of these alloys was studied. The results indicate that the Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 bulk material produced from the as-atomized powder has better corrosion resistance than the samples obtained from the milled powder. The main corrosion behavior for these alloys is pit corrosion, intermetallic particle etchout and the corrosion of the Al-rich inter-particle areas. These results clearly demonstrate that, by the proper selection of the sintering temperature and through the appropriate choice of the initial structural state of the powders, the combined devitrification and consolidation of amorphous precursors can be successfully used to produce bulk amorphous/nanostructured Al-based materials with tunable physical and mechanical properties. This expands the known boundaries of Al alloys and offers a new route for the development of novel and innovative high-performance Al-based materials capable to meet specific requirements.

Amorphous and bulk amorphous metallic alloys are an intriguing class of structural materials and possess a range of interesting properties, including near theoretical strength, high hardness, extremely low damping characteristics, excellent wear properties, high corrosion resistance, low shrinkage during cooling and almost perfect as-cast surfaces with good potential for forming and shaping. In this study, new Ti-based bulk amorphous alloys are tried to be modeled and synthesized. For that purpose, electronic theory of alloys in the pseudo potential approximation was used as a tool for understanding the theory lying beneath the bulk glass forming ability (BGFA). The results from this approach were evaluated both separately and together with the other theories supposed by our colleagues. Glass forming parameters of ordering energy, &amp / #916 / HM, viscosity, mismatch entropy, Rc was calculated for various Ti-based binary and ternary and the change in these parameters in both cases was evaluated. The results of the theoretical calculations of glass forming parameters has shown good relation with the literature data that the predicted alloying elements, i.e. Mo, Hf, Zr, B, Fe, Sn, and Be, to increase GFA for Ti2Ni binary system were generally used in the production of Ti-based bulk amorphous alloys. In the second part of this thesis, new Ti-based compositions with high GFA were tried to be synthesized with light of these results and encouraging conclusions were drawn. The production of these alloys were made with centrifugal casting method which is relatively a new technique for producing such alloys and the characterization of these alloys were made with metallographic, X-ray and thermal means.

The aim of this study is to form a theoretical model for simulation of glass forming ability of Fe &amp / #65533 / Based bulk amorphous alloys, to synthesize Fe &amp / #65533 / based multicomponent glassy alloys by using the predictions of the theoretical study, and to analyze the influence of crystallization and solidification kinetics on the microstructural features of this amorphous alloys. For this purpose, first, glass forming ability of Fe &amp / #65533 / (Mo, B, Cr, Nb, C) &amp / #65533 / X ( X = various alloying elements, selected from the periodic table) ternary alloy systems were simulated for twenty different alloy compositions by using the electronic theory of alloys in pseudopotential approximation and regular solution theory. Then, by using the results of the theoretical study, systematic casting experiments were performed by using centrifugal casting method. The alloying elements were melted with induction under argon atmosphere in alumina crucibles and casted into copper molds of different shapes. Characterization of the cast specimens were performed by using DSC, XRD, SEM, and optical microscopy. Comparison of equilibrium and nonequilibrium solidification structures of cast specimens were also performed so as to verify the existence of the amorphous phase. Good agreement of the results of experimental work, with the predictions of the theoretical study, and the related literature was obtained.

In recent years, bulk amorphous alloys and nanocrystalline materials have been synthesized in a number of ferrous and non-ferrous based alloys systems, which have gained some applications due to their unique physico-chemical and mechanical properties. In the last decade, Zr-based alloys with a wide supercooled liquid region and excellent glass forming ability have been discovered. These systems have promising application fields due to their mechanical properties / high tensile strength, high fracture toughness, high corrosion resistance and good machinability. In this study, the aim is to model, synthesize and characterize the Zr-based bulk amorphous alloys. Initially, theoretical study on the basis of the semi-empirical rules well known in literature and the electronic theory of alloys in pseudopotential approximation has been provided in order to predict the potential impurity elements that would lead to an increase in the GFA of the selected Zr-Ni, Zr-Fe, Zr-Co and Zr-Al based binary systems. Furthermore, thermodynamic and structural parameters were calculated for mentioned binary and their ternary systems. According to the theoretical study, Zr67Ni33 binary system was selected and its multicomponent alloys were formed by adding its potential impurity elements / Mo, W and Al. Centrifugal casting method was used to produce alloy systems. Structural characterizations were performed by DSC, XRD, SEM and EDS methods. In the near-surface regions of Zr60Ni25Mo10W5 and Zr50Ni20Al15Mo10W5 alloys, amorphous structure has been observed. Experimental studies have shown that Zr-Ni based systems with impurity elements Mo, W and Al, not widely used in literature, might be good candidates for obtaining high GFA.

The aim of this study is to synthesize and characterize new bulk amorphous alloys in the Ni- based systems. Theoretical studies on the basis of semi-empirical rules and the electronic theory of alloys in pseudopotential approximation has been provided in order to predict the impurity elements that will lead to an increase in the glass forming ability of Ni-based alloy systems. Glass forming ability of ten different compositions of alloys of Ni-Nb, Ni-Fe, Ni-B, Ni-Hf and Ni-Cr was simulated by using FORTRAN programs based on pseudopotential theory. In addition to the binary alloys, ternary alloys, which were formed by addition of 1 at% of third element to these systems, were also simulated. Since ordering energy is an indicator of glass forming ability, theoretical studies allowed to predict the effect of various third elements on the formation of amorphous phase. Furthermore, ordering energies were also used to calculate other parameters important for glass forming ability. In the second part of the study, on the basis of theoretical results, a series of casting experiments were done. Different compositions of Ni-Nb, Ni-Nb-Sn and Ni-Nb-Al alloys were cast in the centrifugal casting machine. Alloys were melted in alumina crucibles and cast into the copper moulds. Characterizations of cast alloys were done by the use of Metallography, SEM, XRD and DSC. Fully amorphous Ni52Nb41Al7 alloy was synthesized in bulk form with 0.8 mm thickness.

Indentation hardness, H, has been widely used to characterize the mechanical properties of materials for more than a century because of the following advantages of this technique; (1) it requires small sample and (2) the test is non destructive in nature. Recent technological advances helped in the development of instrumented indentation machines which can record the load, P, vs. displacement, h, data continuously during indentation with excellent load and displacement resolutions. From these, H and the elastic modulus, E, of the indented material can be obtained on the basis of the ‘contact area’ of the indentation at the maximum load. The estimation of true contact area becomes difficult during ‘pile-up’ and ‘sink-in’, commonly observed phenomena while indentation of a low and high strain hardened materials. In order for the better understanding of these phenomena it is important to understand the plastic flow distribution under indenters. It is also important for the prediction of elastic-plastic properties from the P-h data. Recently, there have been considerable theoretical and simulation efforts on this front with a combination of dimensional analysis and finite element simulations. One of the important input parameter for the dimensional analysis is the ‘representative strain’ under the indenter, which is a strong function of the indenter geometry. However there is no comprehensive understanding of the representative strain under the indenter despite several studies till date. One objective of the present thesis is to conduct an experimental analysis of the plastic flow during the sharp indentation. The plastic zone size and shape under conical indenters of different apex angles in a pure and annealed copper were examined by employing the subsurface indentation technique to generate the hardness map. From these isostrain contours are constructed joining the data having similar strain values. The following are the key observations. (1) The plastic strain contours are elliptical in nature, spreading more along the direction of the indenter axis than the lateral direction. (2) The magnitude of the plastic strain in the contact region decreases with increasing the indenter angle. (3) The strain decay in the indentation direction follow a power-law relation with the distance. The estimated representative strains under the indenters, computed as the volume average strain within the elastic-plastic boundary, decreases with increasing indenter angle. We also performed finite element simulations to generate plastic flow distribution under the indenter geometries and compared with the experimental results. The results suggest that the experimental and computed average strains match well. However, the plastic strain contours do not, suggesting that further detailed understanding of the elasto-plastic deformation underneath the sharp indenter is essential before reliable estimates of plastic properties from the P-h curves can be made routinely. The second objective of this thesis is to understand plastic flow in amorphous alloys. It is now well established that plastic deformation in metallic glasses is pressure sensitive, owing to the fundamentally different mechanisms vis-à-vis the dislocation mediated plastic flow in crystalline metals alloys. Early work has shown that the pressure sensitivity of amorphous alloys gets reflected as high constraint factor, C (hardness to yield stress ratio), which sometimes exceed 3.0. In this thesis, we study the temperature dependence of pressure sensitive plastic flow in bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) using C as the proxy for the pressure sensitivity. Experiments on three different BMGs show that C increases with temperature hence the pressure sensitivity. In addition we have carried out finite element simulations to generate P-h curves for different levels of pressure sensitivities and match them with the experimental curves that are obtained at different temperatures. Simulations predict that higher pressure sensitivity index values are required to match the experimental curves at high temperatures confirming that the pressure sensitivity increases with increasing temperature. The fundamental mechanisms responsible for the increase in pressure sensitivity are discussed in detail. Finally we pose a question, is the increase in pressure sensitivity with temperature is common to other amorphous materials such as strong amorphous polymers? In order to answer this question we have chosen PMMA, a strong amorphous polymer. In this study also we have taken C as a proxy to index the pressure sensitivity. Indentation stress-strain curves are constructed at different temperature using spherical indentation experiments. The C values corresponding to different temperatures are determined and plotted as a function of temperature. It is found that C increases with temperature implying that the pressure sensitivity of amorphous polymers also increases with temperature. The micro-mechanisms responsible for the increase in pressure sensitivity are sought.

Amorphous and nanostructured Al-based alloys have attracted significant interest owing to their promising properties, including high strength combined with low density. Unfortunately, the production of these advanced materials is limited to powders or ribbons with thickness of less than 100 micrometers due to the reduced glass forming ability of the Al-based alloys. Powder metallurgy through pressure-assisted sintering is a good solution to overcome the size limitation of these materials. In this thesis, Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 glassy powders were consolidated into high-strength bulk materials by hot pressing. The sintering behavior and the microstructural evolution during hot pressing were analyzed as a function of temperature. The results reveal that, through the careful control of the sintering temperature, the combined devitrification and consolidation of the amorphous Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 powders can be achieved, leading to bulk samples with the desired hybrid microstructure and with excellent room temperature mechanical properties. Beside the sintering temperature, the microstructural state of the starting material is critical in order to obtain bulk samples with the desired microstructure and related properties. Consequently, the variation of the initial structural state of the powders as well as of their thermal stability and phase evolution during heating may be used for further tuning the mechanical performance of the hot pressed Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 samples. In order to analyze this aspect, ball milling was used to vary the crystallization behavior of the gas-atomized Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 glassy powder. The influence of milling on microstructure and thermal stability was investigated as a function of the milling time. The results show that the traces of crystalline phases present in the as-atomized powder decrease gradually with increasing the milling time. The thermal stability of the fcc-Al primary phase increases while the thermal stability of the intermetallic phases decreases with increasing milling. Moreover, significant improvement in hardness occurs after milling, which is attributed to the amorphization of the residual crystalline phases present in the as-atomized powder. These finding demonstrate that milling is an effective way to change the initial structural state of the powders and to control the thermal stability of the material. The effect of the microstructural state of the starting material on the mechanical properties of the consolidated samples was investigated in detail. For this, the milled Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 glassy powders were consolidated into bulk specimens by hot pressing. These materials exhibit superior mechanical properties than the samples produced from the as-atomized powder: record high yield strength of 1.7 GPa and fracture strength exceeding 1.8 GPa. This is combined with a plastic strain of about 4 %, Young’s modulus of 120 GPa and density of 3.75 g/cm3. A bimodal microstructure consisting of coarse grained and fine grained regions was achieved in the hot pressed samples by properly controlling the milling process. The exceptionally high strength is attributed to the increased volume fraction of the fine regions, whereas the plastic deformation is favored by the coarse regions, which are able to hinder crack propagation during loading. In addition, the fracture toughness is also improved by the existence of the coarse regions. The tribological properties of the Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 bulk samples were also evaluated. The wear resistance of the bulk samples produced from the milled powder is enhanced with respect to the specimens fabricated from the as-atomized powder, and both alloys exhibit improved wear properties compared to pure aluminum and Al88Si12. Abrasive wear is the main mechanism for these alloys. Finally, the corrosion resistance of these alloys was studied. The results indicate that the Al84Gd6Ni7Co3 bulk material produced from the as-atomized powder has better corrosion resistance than the samples obtained from the milled powder. The main corrosion behavior for these alloys is pit corrosion, intermetallic particle etchout and the corrosion of the Al-rich inter-particle areas. These results clearly demonstrate that, by the proper selection of the sintering temperature and through the appropriate choice of the initial structural state of the powders, the combined devitrification and consolidation of amorphous precursors can be successfully used to produce bulk amorphous/nanostructured Al-based materials with tunable physical and mechanical properties. This expands the known boundaries of Al alloys and offers a new route for the development of novel and innovative high-performance Al-based materials capable to meet specific requirements.

Yes / This paper describes some underlying principles of multicomponent and high entropy alloys, and gives some examples of these materials. Different types of multicomponent alloy and different methods of accessing multicomponent phase space are discussed. The alloys were manufactured by conventional and high speed solidification techniques, and their macroscopic, microscopic and nanoscale structures were studied by optical, X-ray and electron microscope methods. They exhibit a variety of amorphous, quasicrystalline, dendritic and eutectic structures.