Mechanically alloyed tungsten carbide particle/Ti50Cu28Ni15Sn7 glassy alloy matrix composites

The preparation of Ti50Cu28Ni15Sn7 (numbers indicate at.%) metallic glass composite powders was accomplished by the mechanical alloying of a pure Ti, Cu, Ni, Sn and WC powder mixture after 5 h milling. In the ball-milled composites, the initial WC particles were homogeneously dispersed in the Ti-based alloy glassy matrix. The metallic glass composite powders were found to exhibit a large supercooled liquid region before crystallization. The bulk metallic glass composite with submicron WC particles homogeneously embedded in a highly dense nanocrystalline/amorphous matrix was successfully prepared by vacuum hot pressing the as-milled WC/ Ti50Cu28Ni15Sn7 metallic glass composite powders at 723 K under a pressure of ∼1.2 GPa. A significant hardness increase with the WC additions was observed for the consolidated composite compacts.