Effect of ball milling time on microstructures and mechanical properties of mechanically-alloyed iron-based materials

The microstructures and mechanical properties of an iron-based alloy （Fe-13Cr-3W-0.4Ti-0.25Y-0.30O） prepared by mechanical alloying were investigated with scanning electron microscope,optical microscope,X-ray diffractometer and hardness tester.The results show that the particle size does not decrease with milling time because serious welding occurs at 144 h.The density of the alloy sintered at 1 523 K is affected by the particle size of the powder.Finer particles lead to a high sintered density,while the bulk density by using particles milled for 144 h is as low as 70%.In the microstructures of the annealed alloy,large elongated particles and fine equiaxed grains can be detected.The elongated particle zone has a higher microhardness than the equiaxed grain area in the annealed alloys due to the larger residual strain and higher density of the precipitated phase.