AMORPHOUS METAL/REINFORCEMENT COMPOSITE MATERIAL

摘要

A reinforcement-containing metal-matrix composite material (20) is formed by dispersing pieces of reinforcement material (22) throughout a melt of a bulk-solidifying amorphous metal and solidifying the mixture at a sufficiently high rate that the solid metal matrix (24) is amorphous. Dispersing is typically accomplished either by melting the metal and mixing the pieces of reinforcement material (22) into the melt, or by providing a mass of pieces of the reinforcement material (22) and infiltration of the molten amorphous metal into the mass. The metal preferably has a composition of about that of a eutectic composition, and most preferably has a composition, in atomic percent, of from about 45 to about 67 percent total of zirconium plus titanium, from about 10 to about 35 percent beryllium, and from about 10 to about 38 percent total of copper plus nickel.