Hardness behavior of the partially crystallized amorphous Al86Ni9Mm5 alloys

Crystallization behavior and its contribution to hardness of melt-spun amorphous Al–Ni–Mm alloy ribbon was investigated as a function of annealing temperature and time. The as spun ribbon initially consisted of fully amorphous, but formed a crystalline structure of α-Al, Al3Ni and Al11La3 + Al11Ce3 by annealing at peak temperatures of 263, 340 and 376 °C, respectively. The mechanical property estimated from the measured hardness varied with the particle size and volume fraction of the nucleated nano α-Al. The maximum hardness of 376 Hv was measured by annealing to 250 °C for 10 min, in which size and volume fraction of the nanocystalline nucleated were about 70 nm and 9.2%, respectively. The experimentally obtained hardness data was closely correlated with the calculated value.