A mechanical alloying process via a ball milling technique has been ap
plied for preparing amorphous Fe50W50 alloy powders. The results have
shown that during the first and second stages of milling (0 to 360 ks)
W atoms emigrate to Fe lattices to form nanocrystalline b.c.c. Fe-W s
olid solution, with a grain size of about 7 nm in diameter. After 720
ks of the milling time, this solid solution was transformed to an amor
phous Fe-W alloy coexisting with the residual fraction of the unproces
sed W powders. During the last stage of milling (720 to 1440 ks) all o
f this residual W powder reacts with the amorphous phase to form a hom
ogeneous Fe50W50 amorphous alloy. The crystallization temperature and
the enthalpy change of crystallization of amorphous Fe50W50 powders mi
lled for 1440 ks were measured to be 860 K and -9kJ/mol, respectively.
The amorphous Fe50W50 powder produced is almost paramagnetic at room
temperature. The powder comprises homogeneous and smooth spheres with
an average size of about 0.5 mu m in diameter. Copyright (C) 1997 Acta
Metallurgica Inc.