Structure Formation and Corrosion Behaviour of Quasicrystalline Al–Ni–Fe Alloys

The formation of quasicrystalline decagonal phase and related crystalline phases was investigated by a combination of optical metallography, powder X-ray diffraction, atomic absorption spectroscopy and differential thermal analysis. Corrosion behaviour of quasicrystal Al–Ni–Fe alloys was studied by gravimetric and potentiodynamic polarization experiments in saline and acidic solutions at room temperature. The decagonal phase exhibits two modifications (AlFe- and AlNi-based) depending on the composition. In Al72Ni13Fe15 alloy it coexists with monoclinic Al5FeNi phase. In Al71.6Ni23Fe5.4 alloy crystalline Al13(Ni,Fe)4, Al3(Ni,Fe)2, and Al3(Ni,Fe) phases are seen adjacent to the quasicrystalline decagonal phase. Stability of quasicrystal phase up to room temperature was shown to be connected with its incomplete decomposition during cooling at a rate of 50 K/min. Al72Ni13Fe15 alloy has more than twice larger volume fraction of this phase compared to that of Al71.6Ni23Fe5.4 alloy. A dependence of microhardness on composition was observed as well, with Al72Ni13Fe15 alloy having substantially higher values. In acidic solutions, Al71.6Ni23Fe5.4 alloy showed the best corrosion performance. In saline solutions, the investigated alloys remained mainly untouched by corrosion. Mass-change kinetics exhibited parabolic growth rate.

Pseudo-Mackay clusters in the Al-Pd-Co System

A great number of complicated intermetallic compounds were reported in binary and ternary alloy systems of Al with transition metals. Al–Co–Pd is one of the most interesting alloys, since a variety of crystalline phases associated with quasicrystals has been reported [1]. Among these crystalline phases, the structures of ε-phases are closely associated with Al3Pd, which is an important crystalline approximant for the decagonal phase with a period of 1.6 nm. W-phase is another approximant for the decagonal phase and its structural information is useful for understanding the columnar unit in the decagonal phase with a periodicity of 0.8 nm [2]. On the other hand, some crystalline phases associated with the icosahedral phase were also found in this Al-Pd-Co system. C2–phase, R-phase (R¯3: a = 2.91 nm, c = 1.32 nm) and F-phase (Pa3: a = 2.44 nm) are classified into this category. In particular, the structures of R-phase and F-phase consist of a variety of pseudo-Mackay clusters similar to those found in 1/1-AlCuRu and the trigonal χ-AlPdRe. As an example, the structure of R-phase shows two types of pMCs. These pMCs can be ranked by their atomic arrangements of the first shells, nevertheless every outer shell is a harmony of an Al-icosidodecahedron and a Co/Pd-icosahedron. These pMCs interpenetrate each other by sharing edges of Co/Pd-icosahedra and the interstitial space is subsequently filled by the smaller Al-icosahedra around Pd/Al sites [3]. The characteristic structural motifs for R-phase and F-phase readily suggest the importance of pMC as a fundamental structural unit for icosahedral quasicrystals.

Structure of decagonal Al–Ni–Rh

The crystal structure of the decagonal phase in the system Al–Ni–Rh (d-Al-Ni-Rh) was analyzed in the five-dimensional embedding approach based on single-crystal synchrotron X-ray diffraction data. The structure can be described as a quasiperiodic packing of partially overlapping decagonal and pentagonal columnar clusters with ∼ 21 Å diameter and ∼ 4 Å period along the tenfold axis.

High-temperature structural study of decagonal Al–Cu–Rh

The structure of decagonal Al–Cu–Rh has been studied as a function of temperature byin-situsingle-crystal X-ray diffraction in order to contribute to the discussion on energy or entropy stabilization of quasicrystals. The experiments were performed at 293, 1223, 1153, 1083 and 1013 K. A common subset of 1460 unique reflections was used for the comparative structure refinements at each temperature. A comparison of the high-temperature datasets suggests that the best quasiperiodic ordering should exist between 1083 and 1153 K. However, neither the refined structures nor the phasonic displacement parameter vary significantly with temperature. This indicates that the phasonic contribution to entropy does not seem to play a major role in the stability of this decagonal phase in contrast to other kinds of structural disorder, which suggests that, in this respect, this decagonal phase would be similar to other complex intermetallic high-temperature phases.

Quasicrystalline Phase Transformation in the Quaternary and Ternary Systems AlCuMnFe and AlPdMn

An unified structural model has been devised [1] that describes both icosahedral phasesi-AlPdMn and i-AlCuFe. The model suggests that possible icosahedral structures could be found inalloys with general composition Al61:8(PdjCu)21:35(MnjFe)8:29(AljFejMn)4:28(AljCu)4:28. Applied to the systems AlCuMnFe [2] and AlPdFe [3], thisformula leads to the compositions Al66:08Cu21:35Mn8:29Fe4:28 and Al70:36Pd21:35Fe8:29 that have bothbeen synthetized by rapid quenching and annealing.The as-quenched quaternary alloy Al66:08Cu21:35Mn8:29Fe4:28 exhibits a F-icosahedral phase that trans-forms into a decagonal phase after annealing. Its 10-fold axis aligns along one of the 5-fold axes ofthe icosahedral phase. This implies a group-subgroup transformation, with the kernel group ̅5m, anal-ogous to the one observed during CFC to HCP transformations, with kernel ̅3m.The as-quenched and annealed ternary alloy Al70:36Pd21:35Fe8:29 is similar to i-AlPdMn with an iso-morphic substitution of Mn with Fe. A study of the phase diagram of the system AlPdFe [3] showsthat the results are compatible with the structural model proposed here in strong relations with thosepresented in [1] for i-AlPdMn.