The effect of cryogenic milling and parameters of spark plasma sintering on microstructure, phase composition and mechanical properties of metastable beta titanium alloy Ti-15Mo
Abstract
Powder metallurgy is an alternative approach of materials preparation. One of its advantages in titanium alloys is a reduction of costs by near net shape processing.
Ball milling is able to reduce grain size of powder particles while spark plasma sintering is a suitable method of compaction due to short times and low temperatures sufficient for material compaction which help to preserve achieved refinement. In this work, a powder of metastable beta titanium alloy Ti-15Mo was cryogenically milled and both initial and milled powder were spark plasma sintered in temperature range 750°C - 850°C for 1 minute to 3 minutes.
The effects of milling and sintering parameters on the resulting microstructure and phase composition were studied using SEM and XRD. Microhardness and tensile/compressive tests were performed in order to characterize the mechanical properties.
The cryogenic milling causes a decrease of temperature sufficient for material compaction.