Effect of Ta addition on mechanical and magnetic properties of FeCoSiBTa alloys

Fe 43− x Co 43 Si 9 B 5 Ta x ( x = 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0) alloys were produced by powder metallurgy method to study effect of Ta contents on mechanical and magnetic properties for the alloys. It is found that microstructure compactness is improved by increasing sintering temperature, resulting in the increase of microhardness. Tensile strength shows the largest peak values within a broad sintering temperature range for the alloys containing Ta contents ≥ 1.5 at.%. It further reveals that the improvement of the tensile strength is attributed to suppression of detrimental inclusions owing to Ta addition. Dependence of coercivity and resistivity on Ta contents and sintering temperatures was presented as well.