Synthesis and characterization of precipitation hardened amorphous matrix composite by mechanical alloying and pulse plasma sintering of Al<SUB>65</SUB>Cu<SUB>20</SUB>Ti<SUB>15</SUB>

This study reports synthesis of Al65Cu20Ti15 amorphous alloy by mechanical alloying and consolidation of the powder mass by pulsed plasma sintering. During sintering, several intermetallic phases precipitate from the amorphous matrix and cause a significant increase in nano-hardness and elastic modulus. Microstructure in as-milled and sintered conditions was characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning/transmission electron microscopy and differential scanning calorimetric. Among various conditions of sintering, the composites pulse plasma, sintered at 500&#176;C, show the high compression strength (1745 MPa) and high indentation fracture toughness (4.96 MPa m&#189; ); although, the maximum density (3.73 Mg/in3), nano-hardness (14 GPa) and Young's modulus (208 GPa) in the present alloy have been obtained in the composites pulse plasma sintered at 600&#176;C