Materials Science Forum, Vol.514-516, 774-778, 2006
Green and sintered properties of consolidated mixtures of mechanically alloyed and elemental Al powders
Mechanically alloyed aluminium, MA Al, powder is difficult to consolidate. Consolidation often involves complex processing that includes a hot extrusion stage. An alternative consolidation method consisting of a press-and-sinter process has been developed at the University of Seville. Nevertheless, sintered MA Al compacts have a low ductility. In the present work to improve the ductility of consolidated compacts, hard MA Al powder was blended prior to the consolidation processing with different amounts (10, 20, 30 wt%) of soft unmilled Al powder. The bimodal microstructure (hard/soft) of the final compacts makes it possible to balance strength and ductility values.