EFFECT OF MILLING PARAMETERS ON MICROSTRUCTURE OF Ti/Al COMPOSITE POWDER PRODUCED BY DISCUS MILLING

Abstract

The motivation of this research is to develop a process for producing Ti/Al composite powders that enable synthesis of a single-phase TiAl intermetallic bulk material, which is then used as a target for physical vapour deposition (PVD) coating. This study reports the effects of milling time, amount of process control agent (PCA) added as well as the powder-to-medium ratio on the microstructure of the Ti/Al composite powder. Optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to evaluate the level of mixing and the resulting powder particle size. X-ray diffraction analysis and differential thermal analysis were used for determining the phase constituents and the solid state reaction temperature of the as-milled powders.