Effects of nanoscale chemical heterogeneity on the wear, corrosion, and tribocorrosion resistance of Zr-based thin film metallic glasses

Wenbo Wang, Hesham Mraied, Wahyu Diyatmika, Jinn P. Chu, Lin Li, Wenjun Cai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

The effects of nanoscale chemical heterogeneity on the wear, corrosion, and tribocorrosion resistance of ZrCuNiAl thin film metallic glasses were investigated by examining samples of similar global composition but with either homogenous or heterogeneous local composition. Unlike the homogenous sample, the heterogeneous sample exhibited local compositional fluctuations of Zr-rich (~52.8 at.%) and Zr-lean (~51.7 at.%) regions separated by ~413.0 ± 64.7 nm. Dry scratch wear study showed that the homogenous samples exhibited lower wear rates and friction coefficients than their heterogenous counterparts due to their higher hardness and lower stiffness, as measured from nanoindentation tests. Corrosion resistance of both samples was studied through potentiodynamic polarization and Mott-Schottky analysis in 0.6 M NaCl aqueous solution under room temperature. It was found that the heterogeneous samples exhibited higher pitting resistance than their homogenous counterparts by forming a protective passive layer with lower defect density. Finally, the effects of chemical heterogeneity on the tribocorrosion rate and repassivation kinetics of both samples were discussed based on their differences in mechanical and electrochemical properties measured.

Original languageEnglish
Article number126324
JournalSurface and Coatings Technology
Volume402
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 25 2020
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Applied Research Center for Thin-Film Metallic Glass from The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan. WW, HM and WC gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the US National Science Foundation under Grant DMR-1856196 and CMMI-1855651 . W.W. sincerely acknowledge Ya-peng Yu and Stephen McCartney at Virginia Tech for their assistance in sample preparation FIB analysis. LL acknowledge the financial support by the US National Science Foundation under CMMI- 170267 .

Keywords

  • Chemical heterogeneity
  • Corrosion
  • Thin film metallic glass
  • Tribocorrosion
  • Wear

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