Microhardness of Ti-Al powder mixture depending on the duration of high-energy ball milling

Abstract

It is found out that the microhardness of a 3Ti–1.15Al powder mixture increases from 2.97 to 4.66 GPa with the duration of high-energy ball milling increasing from 1.5 to 7.5 min. During the formation of a nanostructured state, the ordered Ti₃Al and TiAl compounds are observed to form, whose volume fractions increase with the processing duration. These peculiarities of the structural-phase transformation of the powder mixture are the main drivers of an increased microhardness under the processing conditions.