Evolución morfológica de una aleación mecánica de aluminio y carburo de silicio

Abstract

The process to obtain the mechanical alloy Al-5%SiC was studied by mean of the high-energy mill technique, using flakeshaped aluminum powder and angular-shaped silicon carbide. We used a mill with steel balls setting the ball to powder relation (BPR) between 10 and 38, in an inert atmosphere of argon gas. In each case, the effective milling time was 16 hours, with a stop each hour and cooling for 30 minutes to take samples. We used optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, dispersive energy X-ray spectroscopy and digital image analysis to make characterization of the mechanical alloying process, particularly for the evaluation of the time needed to achieve the steady state with the nominal BPR between 20 and 10, getting 13 hours in the first case while the second case didn’t show the steady state inside the 16 hours period set. The size of the mechanically alloyed powder doesn’t increase uniformly with the process time. Considerable big ranges of size could exist, whether it achieves the steady state, or not.