Laser additive manufacturing of structural-graded bulk metallic glass

Extending the applications of metallic glasses for use as functionally graded materials could mitigate their intrinsic problems such as limited dimension and ambient brittleness. Laser additive manufacturing (LAM) technology, allowing us to tailor the microstructure of deposited materials, is an outstanding and reliable technique to fabricate structural-graded materials. In the present study, a Zr50Ti5Cu27Ni10Al8 (Zr50) alloy with excellent glass-forming ability was chosen as the model material to fabricate large-size metallic glass by the LAM technology. By optimizing the LAM process through the finite-element simulation, a structural-graded Zr50 alloy with the thickness of larger than 10 mm was successfully fabricated. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.