Evaluation of Iron Aluminide-Fly Ash Nanocomposite Prepared by Attritor Milling and Equal Channel Angular Extrusion Consolidation

An experimental investigation was conducted to evaluate the crystallite size and microhardness of mixtures iron aluminide (Fe₃Al) powder and Class C fly ash in different volume percentages, subjected to attritor milling and consolidation using Equal Channel Angular Extrusion (ECAE) process. Design if experiments was employed to select the lowest size of fly ash to be mixed with pre-milled iron aluminide powder. The results indicate that crystallite sizes n the low nano-range are obtained in all iron aluminide-fly ash compacts, qualifying the compact as a nanocomposite. The microhardness of the nanocomposite is lower than that of the nano-iron aluminide indicating the possibility of porosity being developed in fly ash during processing.