Thermomechanical Properties of Sb2O3-TeO2-V2O5 Glassy Systems: Thermal Stability, Glass Forming Tendency 
and Vickers Hardness
Three-component 40TeO2-(60-x)V2O5-xSb2O3 glasses with 0 ≤ x ≤ 10 (in mol.%) were obtained by the rapid melt-quenching method. These glasses were studied with respect to some mechanical properties with the goal of obtaining information about their structure. The Vickers hardness test was employed to obtain Vickers micro-hardness (HV) at two different loads, which was within the range of 13.187–17.557 GPa for a typical 0.1 HV (0.9807 N) load. In addition, theoretical micro-hardness (H) was investigated and compared with experimental HV, showing the elevating trend with increase of Sb2O3 content, as for HV. Furthermore, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was employed within the range of 150–500°C at heating rates of φ = 3 K/min, 6 K/min, 9 K/min, 10 K/min, and 13 K/min. In this work, thermal stability (Ts = Tcr − Tx) and glass forming tendency (Kgl) were measured and reported for these glasses to determine the relationship between the chemical composition and the thermal stability, in order to interpret the structure of glass. Generally, from the ascertained outputs [analysis of mechanical data, titration study, the values of reduced fraction of vanadium ions (CV) and oxygen molar volume ($$ V_{\text{O}}^{*} $$VO∗)], it was found that the micro-hardness had an increasing trend with increasing the Sb2O3 content. Among the studied glasses, the sample with x = 8 had a higher average micro-hardness value, the highest average thermal stability and glass forming tendency with respect to the other samples, which makes it a useful material (owning very good resistance against thermal attacks) for device manufacturing.