Structure evolution and reaction mechanism in the Ni/Al reactive multilayer nanofoils

The extremely rapid gasless reactions in binary Ni/Al reactive multilayer nanofoils (RMNFs) are investigated both experimentally and theoretically. The quenching technique is used to study the dynamics of structural transformation on the micro- and nanoscales. The experimentally obtained patterns of structural evolution related to the heterogeneous reactions are compared with the results of molecular dynamics simulations carried out for the same reactive system. Based on the obtained data, the intrinsic mechanism of the reaction in Ni/Al RMNF is considered, which adequately explains the unusual parameters of a gasless combustion wave in such a system. (C) 2013 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.