Properties of mechanically milled and spark plasma sintered Al–15at.% MgB2 composite materials

Abstract Air-atomized pure aluminium powder with 15 at.% MgB2 was mechanically milled (MMed) by using a vibrational ball mill, and MMed powders were consolidated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) to produce composite materials with high specific strength. Solid-state reactions of MMed powders have been examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), and mechanical properties of the SPSed materials have been evaluated by hardness measurements and compression tests. Orientation images of microstructures were obtained via the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique. The solid-state reactions in the Al–15 at.% MgB2 composite materials occurred between the MMed powders and process control agent (PCA) after heating at 773–873 K for 24 h. The products of the solid-state reaction were a combination of AlB2, Al3BC and spinel MgAl2O4. Mechanical milling (MM) processing time and heating temperatures affect the characteristics of those intermetallic compounds. As the result of the solid-state reactions in MMed powders, a hardness increase was observed in MMed powders after heating at 573–873 K for 24 h. The full density was attained for the SPSed materials from 4 h or 8 h MMed powders in the Al–15 at.% MgB2 composite materials under an applied pressure of 49 MPa at 873 K for 1 h. The microstructure of the SPSed materials fabricated from the MMed powders presented the bimodal aluminium matrix grain structure with the randomly distributions. The Al–15 at.% MgB2SPSed material from powder MMed for 8 h exhibited the highest compressive 0.2% proof strength of 846 MPa at room temperature.