Effect of Sub-Tg Annealing on the Corrosion Resistance of the Cu–Zr Amorphous Alloys

Despite the economy of material cost and excellent toughness of Cu-based amorphous alloys, especially CuZr, their poor corrosion resistance to a chloride medium limits their widespread applications. In this study, corrosion tests were performed on the CuZramorphous alloy with different degrees of short-range order, which were prepared by annealing below the glass transition temperature(T). It was found that the corrosion resistance of amorphous alloys is improved to a significant level when the alloys were heated below T. Calorimetric studies showed that thermally activated relaxation process of created disorder, which occurs during sub-Tannealing, is responsible for the improvement in the corrosion resistance. Molecular dynamics simulations performed on the Cu–Zr amorphous alloys demonstrated that the relaxation process of the alloys is associated with the formation of energetically stable icosahedra and icosahedron-like structures. Our study highlights the effects of sub-Tannealing on the improvement in the corrosion resistance of the amorphous alloys from the viewpoint the relaxation process of the short-range orders.