X-ray diffraction analysis of a severely plastically deformed aluminum alloy

The crystallite size, lattice microstrain, lattice parameter, and formation of solid solutions of a nanocrystalline Al93Fe3Cr2Ti2 alloy prepared via mechanical alloying (MA) starting from elemental powders have been investigated using the Rietveld method of X-ray diffraction (XRD) in conjunction with line-broadening analyses through the variance, Warren–Averbach, and Stokes and Wilson methods. Detailed analyses using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP) have also been conducted in order to corroborate the formation of solid solutions and the grain size measurement determined from the XRD analyses. The results from the exhaustive XRD analyses are in excellent agreement with those derived from the investigation of TEM, SEM, and ICP. The lattice microstrains of the nanocrystalline Al solid solution determined from the XRD analyses are isotropic along different crystallographic directions and high, exhibiting the same order of magnitude as the ratio of the tensile strength to the elastic modulus of the Al crystal. Implications resulting from the comparison between the present study and the simplified XRD analyses are discussed.