Manufacture and Industrial Application of Fe-Based Metallic Glasses

Metallic glass alloys have been considered as attractive materials due to their excellent mechanical and magnetic properties. However, commercial application of metallic glasses has been limited not only because of high production cost, but because of low market demands. A critical production cost factor was raw material since ferrous metallic glasses were made from high purity electrolytic iron. An idea to reduce the cost was to utilize the raw materials which were taken directly from molten iron and steel manufactured at the existing steel plants. Investigations have been performed to find whether metallic glasses made of molten iron and steel demonstrated appropriate mechanical and magnetic performance. Pilot scale equipments were designed to produce amorphous metallic fibers and strips continuously under the atmospheric condition. Process conditions were optimized by controlling process variables such as alloying and nozzle design, feeding temperature, speed and so on. The glass formability was tested by XRD and DSC analysis. Possibilities of application of Fe-based metallic glasses to reinforced concrete were also evaluated. It was confirmed that a small addition of metallic glass fibers in concrete increased the mechanical performance compared to that of commercial concrete reinforced with steel wires. In addition, amorphous strips were manufactured to apply them to the transformer core. It has been demonstrated that the magnetic properties were equivalent to those of commercial products.