Mesostructural refinement in the early stages of mechanical alloying

This study focuses on the early stages of the mechanical alloying of 22 different binary mixtures. In each case, the number of alloyed particles increases linearly with the number of collisions, and the volume of powder effectively processed during a single collision is similar to 9.0 x 10(-3) mm(3). The alloyed particles exhibit a heterogeneous mesostructure with characteristic lengths decreasing exponentially with the number of collisions. The rate of mesostructural refinement is inversely proportional to the difference between the hardnesses of the individual metals. (C) 2014 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.