2ND MEETING OF RUSSIAN METALS SCIENTISTS - STRUCTURE OF QUENCHED METALLIC ALLOYS AND PHASE-EQUILIBRIUM DIAGRAMS

Experiments on the quenching of cast iron from the liquid state were c arried out by A. Ulitovskii as early as the 1930's. Intensive studies of the structure of quenched melts which were carried out in the early 1960's revealed several new structural states in metallic systems: su persaturated solid solutions, new metastable intermediate phases (not typical of the given system at equilibrium), metallic glasses (amorpho us phases), and quasicrystalline phases. In order to explain these eff ects (not including new phases) special theoretical models are usually proposed, which are at times very elaborate. Based on the published d ata it is possible to describe these structural states from a unified point of view excluding the concept of diffusionless solidification.