TITLE:
Effect of Single Pass Laser Surface Treatment on Microstructure Evolution of Inoculated Zr47.5Cu45.5Al5Co2 and Non-Inoculated Zr65Cu15Al10Ni10 Bulk Metallic Glass Matrix Composites
AUTHORS:
Muhammad Musaddique Ali Rafique
KEYWORDS:
Additive, Bulk Metallic Glass, Composites, Inoculation, Phase
JOURNAL NAME:
Engineering,
Vol.10 No.10,
October
26,
2018
ABSTRACT: Bulk metallic glass matrix composites are advocated to be material of future owing to their superior strength, hardness and elastic strain limit. However, they possess poor toughness which makes them unusable in any structural engineering application. Inoculation has been used as effective mean to overcome this problem. Zr47.5Cu45.5Al5Co2 bulk metallic glass matrix composites (BMGMC) inoculated with ZrC have shown considerable refinement in microstructure owing to heterogeneous nucleation. Efforts have also been made to exploit modern laser-based metal additive manufacturing to fabricate BMGMC parts in one step. However, the effect of laser on inoculated material is unknown. In this study, an effort has been made to apply single pass laser surface treatment on untreated and inoculated BMGMC samples. It is observed that laser treatment not only refine the microstructure but result in change of size, morphology and dispersion of CuZr B2 phase in base metal, heat affected zone and fusion zone in Zr47.5Cu45.5Al5Co2. A similar effect is observed for β-Zr and Zr2Cu in non-inoculated Zr65Cu15Al10Ni10. This effect is documented with back scatter electron imaging.