Reactive Phase Sintering of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Nanocrystalline Alloys

Background

Aluminum is ubiquitous in many aspects of our life, from cans, to personal electronics, and to frames in automobiles. Though for many of these products, the aluminum should be as strong as possible. Dispersoids are important for increasing the strength of alloys and metals since they can bring alloys closer to their theoretical strengths that are usually decreased from imperfections such impurities or distortions in unit cells, allowing for stronger doped alloys such as steel. Though these processes are more structurally stronger, the cost of production is higher than traditional methods, limiting the output from the complicated nature of production or limited effectiveness from the size of the dispersoids.

Technology

Magnesium as a dopant is a great option, with its great oxidation potential and hydrides formed with magnesium decompose at about 400°C lower the overall sintering temperature, and allows for less formational variations resulting in stronger alloys that are slightly more brittle, but much stronger. In conjunction with high energy ball milling with a process control agent and sintering. The rate of milling and time spent is constantly tuned to get a single-phase solid solution, but a much richer solute rich second phase in the milled powders with menial cold welding. This achieves a higher percentage of dispersoids that are around 20 nm. This technology can help reduce the overall cost of production for most products that are constructed primarily from aluminum.

Advantages

Uses less energy to create alloy - Stronger alloy - Larger amount of 20nm dispersoids created - Consistent molecular unit cell groups

Application

Smoother metal products - Industrial alloy production