Microstructure, Texture and Magnetic Properties of Powder Extruded Rare-Earth-Free MnAl-C-Ni Permanent Magnets

MnAl-C alloy is a very promising candidate as a rare-earth free magnet. Additions may affect the microstructure, stability of the τ-MnAl-C and magnetic properties. MnAl-C alloys with various additions (Ni, Ti, Zr or Zn) and powder extruded MnAl-C-Ni alloys have therefore been investigated. With 0.6 or 1.5 at.% Ni addition, the τ-phase has greater stability than that in the ternary alloy: after heat treating the homogenised alloys for 7 days at 700°C, the estimated remaining volume fractions of the τ-phase are 0.35, 0.85 and 0.91 for 0, 0.6 and 1.5 at.% Ni addition, respectively. Rare-earth-free MnAl-C-Ni permanent magnets have been produced for the first time by extruding powders milled from bulk. The best performance obtained for a whole, transverse section of the extruded material was (BH)max = 46 kJm-3, and was (BH)max = 49 kJm-3 for a sample taken from the edge of this section, which was comparable to the long-established benchmark. The microstructure of the materials produced here consisted of fine, recrystallised grains, which exhibited an fibre texture with intermediate texture quality and of larger, non-recrystallised regions, which contained hierarchical twinning and a high density of defects. The volume fraction and size of the non-recrystallised regions were greatly reduced by decreasing the size of the initial powder particles. This led to a large increase in the squareness factor of the demagnetisation curve and consequently to the high (BH)max values observed