Ni-based B–Fe–Ni–Si–Ta bulk metallic glasses designed using cluster line, minor alloying, and element substitutions

The formation of Ni-based B–Fe–Ni–Si–Ta bulk metallic glasses is explored in this work. The alloy compositions are determined by using a combination of the cluster line approach, the minor alloying strategy and the substitutions of similar elements. The basic B–Ni–Si ternary compositions are first determined by the intersection points of different cluster lines, B–Ni cluster to Si and Ni–Si cluster to B, and then are minor-alloyed with 4 at.% Ta. Finally Fe is added to partially substitute for Ni to further improve the glass-forming abilities. Bulk metallic glasses with diameters of 3 mm are formed at compositions [B17.7(Ni1−xFex)70.5](Si7.8Ta4), x = 0.35–0.45, which also exhibit good mechanical and corrosion-resistant properties. Furthermore, these compositions can be expressed using our cluster-plus-glue-atom model as [B2(Ni,Fe)8]1(Si,Ta)1.33. BMGs with compositions satisfying [B2(Ni,Fe)8](Si, Ta)1 are also obtained.