production of fe-c powders with improved structure

production of fe-c alloy powders by mechanical alloying was studied. fe and graphite elemental powdermixtures containing 0.8 and 1.5wt.% graphite were mechanically alloyed using a planetary ball mill. thestructural changes of powder particles during mechanical alloying were studied by x-ray diffractometery,scanning electron microscopy and microhardness measurements. for both compositions, mechanical alloying for30h resulted in the development of a nanocrystalline structure with a typical grain size of 16nm containingnanoscale size fe3c phase. this structure exhibited high microhardness value of the order of 600hv. the powderparticles after 30h of milling had a nearly spherical morphology and narrow size distribution. the mean powderparticle size for fe-0.8wt.% graphite composition was 15μm, whereas the fe-1.5wt.% graphite compositionachieved a smaller particle size with a mean of 9μm due to higher graphite content.