Nanoscratching Mechanical Performance of the TiZrHfCuBe High-Entropy Metallic Glass
DU Yin, LI Tao, PEI Xuhui, ZHOU Qing(), WANG Haifeng()
Center of Advanced Lubrication and Seal Materials, State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China
Cite this article:
DU Yin, LI Tao, PEI Xuhui, ZHOU Qing, WANG Haifeng. Nanoscratching Mechanical Performance of the TiZrHfCuBe High-Entropy Metallic Glass. Acta Metall Sin, 2024, 60(11): 1451-1460.
As emerging advanced materials, metallic glasses demonstrate impressive high strength (approaching the theoretical strength of the material), fracture toughness, corrosion resistance, and thermoplastic-forming ability because of the absence of long-range atomic periodicity, making them potentially replace commercial materials for micro-electromechanical system applications. Although they possess high hardness, their structural instability upon wearing can cause structural relaxation or crystallization, leading to poor tribological behaviors. Inheriting the advantages of conventional metallic glasses and high-entropy alloys, high-entropy metallic glasses have recently attracted considerable attention. Compared with conventional metallic glasses, one prominent characteristic of high-entropy metallic glasses is higher structural thermostability, i.e., reduced devitrification behavior upon heating, which directly affects its respondent behavior in the thermal-stress coupling field. However, the effect of the structural characteristics of high-entropy metallic glasses on wear resistance, which determines the service life of moving parts under actual working conditions, remains unknown. In this study, the nanoscratch behavior of the TiZrHfCuBe high-entropy metallic glass at different scratching and loading rates was investigated based on nanoindentation and nanoscratch technologies. Moreover, the relationship between the special structural characteristics due to high mixing entropy and the nanotribological properties of the TiZrHfCuBe high-entropy metallic glass was studied. The results show that the microstructure of the TiZrHfCuBe high-entropy metallic glass is uniformly composed of a stiff matrix with sparse defects (i.e., free volumes), and the nanohardness in different regions is close to 90% of the theoretical value. In the nanoscratch experiment, the scratching depth of the TiZrHfCuBe high-entropy metallic glass remained unchanged with increasing scratching rate, but the residual scratching depth gradually decreased. This is attributed to the fact that the increase in the scratch rate retards the activation of the shear transition zone and the subsequent nucleation and expansion of shear bands in the microstructure. This eventually reduces the plowing coefficient and residual scratching depth during the scratch process. However, in the nanoscratch experiment under variable force loading, the hysteresis effect of the shear transition zone activation and the subsequent shear deformation could be relieved by increasing the loading force, thereby increasing the plastic plowing coefficient and scratch depth.
Fund: National Natural Science Foundation of China(51975474);Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(3102019JC001);Research Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing (NPU)(2023-BJ-04)
Fig.1 HRTEM image and corresponding selected area electron diffraction (SAED) pattern (inset) (a) and heating differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) curve (b) of TiZrHfCuBe high-entropy metallic glass (HE-MG); atomic force microscope (AFM) height image of the polished surface (c); and profile roughness distribution curve along the horizontal direction of polished surface as shown by black dashed line in Fig.1c (d) (Tg—glass transition temperature, Tx—onset crystalli-zation temperature, Tl—liquidus temperature)
Fig.2 Different nanoindentation load-displacement curves of TiZrHfCuBe HE-MG obtained in the 11 × 11 nanoindentation lattice (Inset shows corresponding local enlarged load-displacement curves for better visualization) (a) and statistical distribution of hardness measured by nanoindentation (Shaded areas show the measured hardness values distribution interval, dotted lines show the lowest and highest measured hardness values, and red balls show the statistical distribution of hardness) (b)
Fig.3 Schematic of the nanoscratching process (a) and surface profiles as a function of scratch distance during the nanoscratching process (b)
Fig.4 Nanoscratch results of TiZrHfCuBe HE-MG at different scratch rates (a) coefficient of friction as a function of the scratch distance (b-d) scratch depth and penetration wear depth as a function of the scratch distance under scratch rates of 0.1 μm/s (b), 0.5 μm/s (c), and 1.0 μm/s (d) (Insets show the corresponding scanning probe microscope (SPM) images of the scratch surface after nanoscratch tests)
Fig.5 Calculated ploughing coefficient as a function of the scratch distance under different scratch rates (a) and ratios of ploughing coefficient and adhesion coefficient in friction coefficient under different scratch rates (b)
Fig.6 Schematic of TiZrHfCuBe HE-MG nanoscratch process under different loading rates (a), friction coefficient as a function of the scratch distance (b), and scratch depth and penetration wear depth as a function of the scratch distance under loading rates of 1 mN/s (c) and 2 mN/s (d)
Fig.7 Calculated ploughing (a) and adhesion (b) coefficients as function of the scratch distance under different load rates
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