Effect of ball milling time on the microstructure and compressive properties of the Fe–Mn–Al porous steel

In the present work,Fe–Mn–Al–C powder mixtures were manufactured by elemental powders with different ball milling time,and the porous high-Mn and high-Al steel was fabricated by powder sintering.The results indicated that the powder size significantly decreased,and the morphology of the Fe powder tended to be increasingly flat as the milling time increased.However,the prolonged milling duration had limited impact on the phase transition of the powder mixture.The main phases of all the samples sintered at 640℃ were α-Fe,α-Mn and Al,and a small amount of Fe2Al5 and Al8Mn5.When the sintering temperature increased to 1200℃,the phase composition was mainly comprised of γ-Fe and α-Fe.The weight loss fraction of the sintered sample decreased with milling time,i.e.,8.3wt% after 20 h milling compared to15.3wt% for 10 h.The Mn depletion region(MDR) for the 10,15,and 20 h milled samples was about 780,600,and 370 μm,respectively.The total porosity of samples sintered at 640℃ decreased from ~46.6vol% for the 10 h milled powder to ~44.2vol% for 20 h milled powder.After sintering at 1200℃,the total porosity of sintered samples prepared by 10 and 20 h milled powder was ~58.3vol% and ~51.3vol%,respectively.The compressive strength and ductility of the 1200℃ sintered porous steel increased as the milling time increased.

High-performance martensitic stainless steel nanocomposite powder for direct energy deposition prepared by ball milling

Direct energy deposition(DED)has great potential for the production of stainless steel matrix nanocomposite parts.However,the propensity of nanoparticle agglomeration leads to the difficulty in realizing homogenous dispersion of nanoparticles in the matrix.In this study,a series of agglomeration-free nanoWC-Co-reinforced 420 stainless steel matrix nanocomposite powders with high flowability were prepared by ball milling under the optimal parameters.The effect of ball milling time on the properties of the composite powders was investigated.Excellent powder properties ensure the DED processing performance.Furthermore,the corresponding composites were fabricated by DED,and the effects of nano-WC-Co content on the properties of the composites were comprehensively investigated.The contact angles between the single pass cladding layer and the substrate change with increasing nano-WC-Co content(decrease from 127.38°to 113.07°).The different contact angles will significantly influence the quality of the multipass cladding layer.Furthermore,the addition of nanoWC-Co leads not only to further grain refinement but also to more pronounced isotropy of the micros tructure.With the increase in nano-WC-Co content,the corrosion resistance is significantly improved(62.28%lower corrosion current for 420-15 wt%nano-WC-Co than for 420).