Iron-Based Amorphous Metals—An Important Family of High-Performance Corrosion-Resistant Materials

Excerpt

The possibility of achieving outstanding corrosion resistance with compositionally modified iron-based amorphous metals was recognized several years ago, with substantial progress made recently in the realization of this potential. Due to their unique combination of properties, these high-performance corrosion-resistant materials should find widespread use in applications such as heavy equipment manufacture, enhanced transportation infrastructure including steel reinforcement bars for concrete and steel bridges, the safe storage, transportation and disposal of spent nuclear fuel, and national defense. These materials have been shown to have excellent wear hardness with exceptional resistance to abrasion and gouges, and corrosion resistance better than that of conventional stainless steels and comparable to that of Ni-based alloys. Since their discovery, new alloy compositions have been designed and synthesized that have led to improved stability at high temperatures, well above 500 °C. In addition, the boron content that is present in these new formulations provides excellent neutron absorbing characteristics that make them suitable for criticality control applications. Despite the progress made in high-performance corrosion-resistant metals (HPCRMs), there continues to be a need to master their properties, improve their quality, and quantify their performance so that their use as integral components of structural materials can be considered with a high level of confidence. …