Production of Bulk Metallic Glasses through Sintering by Electropulsing Treatment

Many bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) are known to have attractive material characteristics such as high levels of strength-to-weight ratio and reasonable toughness whilst being flexible. Indeed this has led to their use in a wide variety of high performance applications ranging from the golf club to micromachine components. However, the sizes of cast BMG components are limited by the critical cooling rate for retaining glassy structure. This imposes undesirable constraints on the applications of the materials. Powder metallurgy can be a promising fabrication route for circumventing the size limitation. Electropulsing treatment is a relatively recent technique for inducing microstructure changes and even healing cracks. This project proposes using electropulsing treatment to achieve densification of the BMG powder green compact. The major advantages of using the technique are the short processing time and low temperature rise involved, which leads to evading the use of expensive vacuum facilities or inert gas purging.