Criterion for predicting the glass-forming ability of alloys

Mechanical alloying (MA) of blended elemental powder mixtures of Fe42Zr10X28B20 (X=Al, Co, Ge, Mn, Ni, and Sn) was carried out to determine their glass-forming ability (GFA) (as determined by the time required to form the amorphous phase). During milling, amorphization was achieved in systems with X=Al, Ge, or Ni, but not in the other systems. The GFA could be correlated with the total number of intermetallics present in the constituent binary phase diagrams. Thus, this work offers the equilibrium phase diagram as a predictive tool to determine if amorphization can be achieved by the MA method.