Recent advances in the synthesis of alloy phases by mechanical alloying/milling

Abstract

Mechanical alloying (MA) is a solid-state powder processing technique involving repeated welding, fracturing, and rewelding of powder particles in a high-energy ball mill. Originally developed to produce oxide-dispersion strengthened nickel- and iron-base superalloys, MA has now been shown to be capable of synthesizing a number of alloy phases—equilibrium and supersaturated solid solutions, stable and metastable crystalline and quasicrystalline intermediate phases, and amorphous alloys. Recent advances in these areas and also on disordering of ordered intermetallics and displacement reactions have been critically reviewed. Wherever possible, comparisons have been made on the product phases obtained by MA and by rapid solidification processing, another non-equilibrium processing technique.