The effect of ball milling on crystallite size

Abstract

Homogeneous mixing of Al, varying amounts of Cu, Mg and Zn metal powders and SiC ceramic powders and mechanical alloys of metal powders by using high energy ball milling were carried out in the Retsch MM400 model mixer device, which performs movement in a spex manner. After this process, X-ray diffraction (XRD) was applied to the powdered mixtures. With the data obtained from XRD graphics; The crystallite size was calculated using the Scherrer equation, and the lattice stresses were calculated using the Williamson-Hall equation and comparisons between these two data were made. It was observed that the amount of Cu by weight, both the crystallite size, did not make a notable change for this property. Then, powder mixtures were sintered in hot isostatic press in argon atmosphere, which is a shielding gas, and turned into samples. These samples were polished and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images were taken.