Micron size powders having nano size reinforcement

摘要

An improved sintered material and product. A nanometer size reinforcement powder is mixed with a micron size titanium or titanium alloy powder. After the reinforcement powder is generally uniformly dispersed, the powder mixture is compacted and sintered, causing the nano reinforcement to react with the titanium or titanium alloy, producing a composite material containing nano and micron size precipitates that are uniformly distributed throughout the material.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
combining a nano-sized powder of one material with micron-sized particles of another material, said micron-sized particles comprising titanium or its alloys and said nano-sized powder comprising particles having a size of between 1 and 80 nanometers; ball-milling the powders to produce a mixture in which a number of nano-sized particles in any volume is substantially proportional to a surface area of said micron-sized particles in the volume; and performing said ball-milling step to de-agglomerate said nano-sized particles and cause said nano-sized particles to be generally uniformly dispersed among said micron-sized particles and said nano-sized particles become embedded and bound to a surface of each of the micron-sized particles to provide a coating into or onto each of said surfaces of said micron-sized particles, said nano-sized particles coating said surface of each of said micron-sized particles to provide a hybrid particle with a total number of hybrid particles being less than a total sum of the nano-sized particles and micron-sized particles, with said hybrid particles each being larger than said micron-sized particles; wherein said ball milling produces said coating of said nano-sized particles into or onto each of said surfaces of said micron-sized particles, with a number of nano-sized particles in any volume being substantially proportional to a surface area of micron-sized particles in said volume for a single layer coating; each of said hybrid particles being defined by one of said micron-sized particles that has at least one coating of said nano-sized particles on its surface so that at least one layer of said nano-sized particles is spread over of the surface of said micron-sized particles.