Phase formation, glass forming ability, mechanical and thermal properties of Cu50Zr50−xAlx (0x 11.0) glass forming alloys were systematically investigated. The results show that Cu50Zr47Al3 alloy has the best glass forming ability (GFA), lowest fragility index (m) and highest fracture strength. There are B2 CuZr and B19' CuZr phases for Cu50Zr50−xAlx (0x5.0) alloys. B2 CuZr phase disappears and two new phases (Cu10Zr7 and CuZr2) appear when 5.05.0). Cu50Zr50−xAlx (0x4.0) alloys are off-eutectic compositions while near-eutectic compositions for Cu50Zr50−xAlx (5.0x11.0) alloys. The Eg, Ex, and Ep decrease with increasing sensitive factor (β) for the studied Cu-based alloys characterized in the room-temperature brittleness. The dependence of the phase formation and GFA on the Al content is discussed.
INTRODUCTIONCu-based bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) have been extensively investigated due to their interestingly properties including work hardening [1], martensitic transformation [2-5], magnetism [6], catalytic activity [7,8], cryogenic temperature plasticity [9] and room-temperature plasticity [10][11][12][13][14], which enable their applications as structural and functional materials.Cu-Zr binary alloy system is characterized by good glass forming ability (GFA) and wide composition region for the formation of glass alloys [15] Element minor addition/substitution is a well-known method for improving the GFA and other properties of glass forming alloys [6,[12][13][14]19,20]. For example, Mattern et al. [6] found that a ferromagnetic Gd-enriched nanocluster could form in Cu 50 Zr 50−x Gd x (x=5) metallic glasses due to the phase separation by Gd minor addition. Xi et al. [20] found that Gd minor addition improved the combination of the GFA and the room-temperature plasticity of Cu 46 Zr 47 Al 7 BMG. Ma et al. [12] investigated the effect of substituting Al by Ti on the GFA and the mechanical properties of brittle Cu 46 Zr 46 Al 8 BMG and found that the Ti addition significantly increased the plasticity although the characteristic temperatures including the glass transition temperature (T g ), onset crystallisation temperature (T x ) and supercooled liquid region (ΔT x ) decreased with increasing Ti content. Kuo et al. [13] investigated the effect of V on the phase formation and plasticity in Cu 47.5 Zr 47.5 Al 5 glassy alloy and found that V minor addition improved the plasticity by doubling the fracture strain to 9.4% in (Cu 47.5 Zr 47.5 Al 5 ) 99 V 1 due to the formation of B2-CuZr precipitates. Recently, Cai et al. [14] found that the substitution of Ti by Ni significantly influences the GFA, mechanical, electrical and thermal properties of Cu 50 Zr 40 Ti 10...