Crystallization process in rapidly solidified AI-Nd-Ni amorphous alloy prepared by melt spinning

Rapidly solidified ribbons of Al90Nd7Ni3 metallic glasses were prepared by using melt spinning. Crystallization process of the totally amorphous ribbons was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction analysis, under continuous heating regime. The results show that, under continuous heating regime, the metallic glass devitrifies via two main stages: primary crystallization, resulting in two-phase mixture of a(Al) plus residual amorphous phase, and secondary crystallization, corresponding to some inter-metallic phases appearing,successively including A111 Nds, Als Ni, and some unknown phases, in the AI amorphous/crystal matrix. Four peaks appear on the continuous heating DSC curves. Their peak temperatures are respectively 470.8, 570.8, 585.6, and 731.6 K at infinitesimal heating rate, and their activation energies of the respective phase transformation are 183.0,294.7, 232.5 and 269.1 kJ/mol. The values of Avrami exponent of the four reactions decrease with increasing relative transformation degree. At the earlier stage of phase transformation, the values of n are larger than 4, and at the later stage the values of n become close to some value from 0.5 to 2.0.