Synthesizing and Characterizing of a Novel Zr90Ni6Pd4 Bulk Metallic Glassy Alloy Obtained by Spark Plasma Sintering of Mechanically Alloyed Powders

A single phase of metallic glassy Zr90Ni6Pd4 powders was synthesized by mechanical alloying approach of the elemental powders, using a low-energy ball mill. The solid-solution hcp-ZrNiPd phase obtained after 25 h of the milling time transformed into a single amorphous phase upon ball milling for 100 h to 150 h. This synthesized amorphous alloy transformed into a metallic-glass at a glass transition temperature of 552.8°C. A small volume fraction of this glassy phase transformed into a mixture of two metastable phases of i-phase + big-cube upon annealing at 649.1°C. The supercooled liquid region of the metallic glassy Zr90Ni6Pd4 alloy powders was 69.7°C. A complete crystallization was achieved at a temperature ranged from 649.1°C to 682.2°C through a sharp exothermic reaction with an enthalpy change of crystallization of -76.3 J/g. After this temperature, the formed metallic glassy phase was transformed to polycrystalline mixture of tetragonal Zr2Ni and Zr2Pd phases. The powders obtained after 150 h of milling were subsequently consolidated at 600°C, using spark plasma sintering technique. The sizes of the obtained bulk metallic glassy buttons ranged were 15 mm and 50 mm in diameter with different thicknesses in the range between 0.25 mm to 20 mm. This consolidation step led to the formation of full-dense buttons with relative densities laid in the range between 99.23% to 99.76% without precipitations of any medium- or long-range ordered phase (s). Nanoindentation approach was employed to identify the nanohardness and Young’s modulus that were in the range between 7.74 to 9.32 GPa, and 135.26 to 151.15 GPa, respectively.