Mechanical Alloying: Processing and Materials

Mechanical alloying is a technique of producing alloys and compounds that permits the development of metastable materials (with amorphous or nanocrystalline microstructure) or the fabrication of solid solutions with extended solubility. The elements or compounds to be mixed (usually as powders) are introduced in jars usually under a controlled atmosphere.Regarding the scope of this book advanced materials have been developed by mechanical alloying: Fe-X-B-Cu (X = Nb NiZr) nanocrystalline alloys mixtures of the binary Fe-Mn and Fe-Cr alloys with chromium and manganese nitrides Mn-Al-Co and Mn-Fe alloys non-equiatomic refractory high-entropy alloys nanocrystalline Fe-Cr steels nanaocrystalline Mn-Co-Fe-Ge-Si alloys Al-Y2O3 nanocomposite and hydride-forming alloys. Likewise production conditions and ulterior treatments can provide readers interesting ideas about the procedure to produce alloys with specific microstructure and functional behavior (mechanical magnetic corrosion resistance hydrogen storage magnetocaloric effect wastewater treatment and so on). As an example to obtain the improvement in the functional properties of the alloys and compounds sometimes controlled annealing is needed (annealing provokes the relaxation of the mechanical-induced strain). Furthermore the powders can be consolidated (press spark plasma sintering and microwave sintering) to obtain bulk materials.