Laser-Based Additive Manufacturing and Characterization of an Open-Porous Ni-Based Metallic Glass Lattice Structure (Ni₆₀Nb₂₀Ta₂₀)

Due to their amorphous structure, metallic glasses exhibit remarkable properties such as high strength, hardness, and elastic strain limit. Conversely, they also exhibit high susceptibility to brittle fracture, making them less qualified for the use as monolithic structural components. Therefore, they may be preferably used as the reinforcing phase in hybrid materials combined with ductile matrix materials. Especially metal matrix composites with interpenetrating structures are suitable. This requires an open-porous structure of the metallic glass. In the study at hand, an open-porous lattice structure was manufactured from metallic glass powder (Ni60Nb20Ta20) by laser powder bed fusion. A parameter study was carried out with various scanning strategies to manufacture a mechanically stable lattice structure while maintaining the amorphous structure of the metallic glass. Thus, X-ray diffraction measurements were conducted to validate the parameter study. A stable lattice structure with a largely amorphous structure was successfully achieved with a scanning strategy of single scanned lines and a rotation of 90° for each layer. However, nanocrystallization of 7% occurred in the heat-affected zones formed between the individual printed layers during reheating. Conducting compression tests, a compressive modulus of 18 GPa and a maximum strength of 90 MPa in 0°-direction were achieved. In 90°-direction, no compressive modulus could be determined but compressive strength resulted in 15 MPa. Performing nanoindentation with a Young's modulus of 195.1 GPa and Vickers hardness of HVIT = 956.1 was achieved for the printed bulk metallic glass alloy. The resulting lattice structure was further characterized by differential scanning calorimetry for thermal behavior.