In this study, a nano-composite material of a nanostructured Al-based matrix reinforced with Fe40Al intermetallic particles was produced by ball milling. During the non-equilibria processing, the powder mixtures with the compositions of Al-XFe40Al (X = 5, 10, and 15 vol. %) were mechanically milled under a low energy regime. The processed Al-XFe40Al powder mixtures were subjected to uniaxial pressing at room temperature. Afterward, the specimens were subjected to a sintering process under an inert atmosphere. In this thermal treatment, the specimens were annealed at 500 °C for 2 h. The sintering process was performed under an argon atmosphere. The crystallite size of the Al decreased as the milling time advanced. This behavior was observed in the three specimens. During the ball milling stage, the powder mixtures composed of Al-XFe40Al did not experience a mechanochemical reaction that could lead to the generation of secondary phases. The crystallite size of the Al displayed a predominant tendency to decrease during the ball milling process. The microstructure of the consolidated specimens indicated a uniform dispersion of the intermetallic reinforcement phases in the Al matrix. Moreover, according to the Vickers microhardness tests, the hardness varied linearly with the increase in the concentration of the Fe40Al intermetallic phase present in the composite material. The presented graphs indicate that the hardness increased almost linearly with the increasing dislocation density and with the reduction in grain sizes (both occurring during the non-equilibria processing). The microstructural and mechanical properties reported in this paper provide the aluminum matrix composite materials with the ideal conditions to be considered candidates for applications in the automotive and aeronautical industries.
In this research project, Al matrix composite materials reinforced with 5 and 10 (wt.%) of FeAl intermetallic particles were synthesized by Mechanical Alloying (MA) at a speed of 250 RPM for 2, 5, 10 and 15 h of milling time. The results showed that composite materials can be obtained at low energy conditions with improved dispersion of the reinforcement in the Al matrix compared to those obtained by conventional techniques. The composites powders obtained by mechanical alloying at different milling times were studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) in order to characterize the morphology and particle size. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) was used to study the structural evolution of the system as the initial powders were subjected to different milling times, thus obtaining the evolution of the present phases, changes in lattice parameters and crystallite size. This work demonstrates the viability of the MA technique to produce composite materials with a homogenous distribution of the reinforcement particles with a great degree of control in the process, which would be very difficult to reproduce by conventional synthesis methods.
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