NANOSTRUCTURED Zr-BASED ALLOYS-PHASE FORMATION AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES

Newly developed nanostructured Zr/Ti-Al-TM multiphase alloys can provide a large bandwidth of interesting properties, such as mechanical properties. Bulk materials with nanocrystalline/ amorphous and (nano)quasicrystalline/ amorphous microstructure with different volume fractions of nanophases and with different grain sizes can be obtained by slowly cooling the melt as well as by solid state reactions. Multiphase structures are realized either by partial de-vitrification of bulk glass-forming alloys or by defined addition of inert compounds upon alloying. Special preparation techniques e.g. copper mould casting and subsequent controlled annealing and mechanical alloying combined with hot consolidation of powders are described. The phase formation and transformation processes and the thermal stability of such materials in dependence on alloy composition and processing parameters are discussed in detail. Currently, the exploration of properties with respect to potential applications of these nanostructured alloys is still at the beginning. First investigations on the contributions of different phases/ volume fractions to the overall mechanical behaviour will be shown. At room temperature, the deformation behaviour of amorphous/crystalline bulk samples is governed by contributions of all existing phases yielding a high strength of the material.