Effect of Milling Time and Annealing on the Mechanical Response of Mechanically Milled Aluminium

Abstract

Owing to its many exceptional properties, aluminium finds many applications in theaerospace, automotive, building and packaging industries. Enhancing its properties through alloyingor thermal treatments has been the focus of researchers’ interests for a long time. In this work, purealuminium powders were mechanically milled for up to 12 hrs and then were cold compacted andextruded to produce bulk nanostructured material. Both tensile and compressive tests wereconducted and the results compared. Post extrusion annealing treatments for up to 3 hrs wereconducted on additional samples.It was found that increasing the process control agent (PCA) content as well as the milling durationresulted in a finer microstructure and hence enhanced mechanical strength. This was accompaniedby a reduction in the ductility of the material. Moreover, compression tests revealed that thesamples are significantly more ductile in compression than in tension and that the decrease inductility with increase in milling time is less significant than in the case of tension. The differencein mechanical response is attributed to plastic instabilities. Annealing was found to enhance thetensile ductility of the samples without sacrificing strength.