Mechanical milling of aluminum powder using planetary ball milling process

Mechanical alloying has recently attracted considerable attention as researchers strive to enhance nanocomposite properties and extend their utility. The process can be performed at room temperature and homogeneous nanocomposite powders can be produced. In this paper, we investigated the effect of different ball milling parameters and operating conditions (milling time, ball size, processing control agent (PCA) and speed) in mechanical alloying of aluminum powder to achieve particle size reduction with less contamination. Two types of PCA, i.e. stearic acid and methanol have been used and microstructure evolutions at different operating conditions were studied. It was shown that the optimized milling parameters for aluminium composite are 100 stainless steel ball (10 mm), 200 rpm rotation speed with direction reversal and 1 min pause time after every 15 min running time, under argon gas for 30 hr of milling.