Nanostructuration of Metals via Spark Plasma Sintering Using Activated Powder Obtained by Ball-Milling: Impact on the Strain-Hardening Mechanisms

Powder metallurgy is a good option when coupled with pressure as a method to obtain nanostructured materials (NsM). The samples obtained by these means are nearly fully dense specimens that present low internal stresses. In this work, nickel is chosen to study the possibilities of nanostructuration via Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) of ball-milled powders. The enhancement of the mechanical properties of the sintered samples are studied and compared with the results obtained for 316L austenitic stainless steel in a previous work.