Influence of processing conditions in the thermal stability of mechanically alloyed nanostructured CU-CO-Fe based alloys

Abstract

Copper, cobalt and iron are elements that have a very limited solubility among them, being the systems Cu-Co and Cu-Fe practically immiscible. The fact of working with a system with good performance technology being an alloy widely used as base material in cutting tools and in applications where their magnetic properties are useful, it becomes important to study how to get them from the solid state, being mechanical alloying with high energy ball mill the best way. The objective of this project is to find the best conditions for nanostructure and try to achieve amorphous conditions for the Cu-Fe-Co sample with mechanical alloying and compare it with different times. For this reason we choose three scenarios with the same metal powder where it will be treated for 8 hours, 50 hours and 60 hours. The sample resulting from different trials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) for comparing the different results, to study the evolution of the sample at different milling times to evaluate the variation parameters in the matrix of copper and a study of the crystal size. Subsequently the long time milling samples were compacted by laminating and sintered in a tube furnace to reduce the porosity and make it more consistent. We have studied the results obtained after sintering and have been compared with the original sample with no treatment to observe how they have changed their structure. The main conclusion we can say is that a long milling time changes the structure of the sample, but you cannot get the sample totally amorphous. There are obvious changes in the structure of the alloy and the size of the Crystal decreases.