Influence of cooling rate and cerium addition on rapidly solidified Al-TM alloys

Abstract

Rapidly solidified alloys, based on an aluminium-transition metal (TM) system, are promising structural materials. They show good mechanical properties and excellent thermal stability, which is caused by the very fine nanostructure of these materials and by the presence of nonequilibrium intermetallic phases. Influence of the cooling rate and Ce addition on properties of Al-5.5Ce-3Fe-1.5Ti alloy that was prepared by the melt spinning method was studied in this work. It was shown that formation of the quasicrystalline phase depends on the cooling rate during melt spinning. The addition of a few weight percents of Ce modifies phase composition of the alloy and stabilizes quasicrystals at elevated temperatures. However, the influence of Ce addition on hardness was not observed.