On the role of mechanical properties in the early stages of the mechanical alloying of Ag50Cu50 powder mixtures

Commercial Cu powders were subjected to ball milling at different collision energies. The resulting powders exhibit roughly the same average particle size, but different degrees of microstructural refinement and different Vickers microhardnesses. Pre-processed and commercial Cu powders were employed to form different Ag50Cu50 powder mixtures, which were subsequently subjected to mechanical processing. It is shown that mutual dissolution processes in the early stages of the mechanical treatment proceed at decreasing rate as the Cu Vickers microhardness increases.