Effects of Ball Milling Time on the Microstructure and Mechanical Property of Cu90Al10 Alloy

Abstract

Nanostructured Cu90Al10 alloy powders were prepared by high energy ball milling mechanical alloying (MA). Up to 10 at.% Al could be dissolved into copper by mechanical alloying at room temperature. Effects of milling time on phase transformation, structural characteristics, and mechanical property of powders were investigated by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Optical Microscopy (OM) and microhardness tester. The results show: with increasing the milling time, the powder particle size increased gradually, and then it tended to be homogeneous. The grain size of the alloy decreased gradually, but the yield strength increased with the extension of the ball milling. After 30h milling, the grain size reached the minimum value of 9 nm, and the yield strength obtained the maximum value of 511 MPa.