Forming of metallic glass by rapid capacitor discharge forging

• Main Authors: DEMETRIOU MARIOS D, SCHRAMM JOSEPH P, JOHNSON WILLIAM L, KALTENBOECK GEORG
• Format: Patent
• Language: Chinese; English
• Published: 31.07.2013
• Subjects: ALLOYS; CHANGING THE PHYSICAL STRUCTURE OF NON-FERROUS METALS ANDNON-FERROUS ALLOYS; CHEMISTRY; FERROUS OR NON-FERROUS ALLOYS; GENERAL DEVICES FOR HEAT TREATMENT OF FERROUS OR NON-FERROUSMETALS OR ALLOYS; GLASS; MAKING METAL MALLEABLE BY DECARBURISATION, TEMPERING OR OTHERTREATMENTS; MANUFACTURE, SHAPING, OR SUPPLEMENTARY PROCESSES; METALLURGY; METALLURGY OF IRON; MINERAL OR SLAG WOOL; MODIFYING THE PHYSICAL STRUCTURE OF FERROUS METALS; TREATMENT OF ALLOYS OR NON-FERROUS METALS

A forging apparatus and a method of uniformly heating, rheologically softening, and thermoplastically forming metallic glasses rapidly into a net shape using a rapid capacitor discharge forming (RCDF) tool are provided. The RCDF method utilizes the discharge of electrical energy stored in a capacitor to uniformly and rapidly heat a sample or charge of metallic glass alloy to a predetermined ''process temperature'' between the glass transition temperature of the amorphous material and the equilibrium melting point of the alloy in a time scale of a plurality of milliseconds or less. Once the sample is uniformly heated such that the entire sample block has a sufficiently low process viscosity, the sample may be shaped into high quality amorphous bulk articles via forging in a time frame of less than 1 second.