Mechanical and corrosion behaviour of Al-Fe-Nb amorphous alloys

The development of new nanostructured and amorphous A-alloys gives much hope to develop new improved light materials with high specific strengths and good corrosion resistance. In a previous work [1], the amorphicity range in Al-rich Al-Fe-Nb alloys produced by the melt-spinning technique was determined. In this work, the mechanical and corrosion behaviour of these alloys in the amorphous and partially amorphous states, is reported. The mechanical characterisation was carried out by microhardness and nanoindentation tests, the latter in order to determine Young's modulus. The corrosion behaviour has been evaluated by means of potentiodynamic polarisation techniques in a chloride containing solution. Results have been compared with those obtained for crystalline alloys with the same chemical composition. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has been used to analyse the oxide film formed in melt-spun samples during the rapid quenching under air atmosphere. The Al-Fe-Nb fully amorphous alloys exhibit low Young's moduli, high microhardness values and a good corrosion behaviour.