Effect of carbon on the microstructural evolution of Zr66.7−Ni33.3C (x= 0, 1, 3) alloys during mechanical alloying

Abstract In the present paper, the effect of carbon on the microstructural evolution of Zr66.7−xNi33.3Cx (x = 0, 1, 3) alloys during mechanical alloying has been investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that these three alloys undergo similar amorphization and crystallization processes, and the final milling product is a metastable fcc-Zr66.7−xNi33.3Cx phase. The carbon addition can shorten the milling time for the complete amorphization reaction and enhance the stability of the formed amorphous alloy, which can suppress the mechanically induced amorphous-crystalline phase transformation with further increasing milling time.