The effect of milling time on the morphology, microstructure, physical and mechanical properties of pure Al-5 wt % Al₂O₃ (Al-5Al₂O₃) has been investigated. Al-5Al₂O₃ nanocomposites were fabricated using ball milling in a powder metallurgy route. The increase in the milling time resulted in the homogenous dispersion of 5 wt % Al₂O₃ nanoparticles, the reduction of particle clustering, and the reduction of distances between the composite particles. The significant grain refining during milling was revealed which showed as a reduction of particle size resulting from longer milling time. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of the nanocomposite powders also showed that designated ball milling contributes to the crystalline refining and accumulation of internal stress due to induced severe plastic deformation of the particles. It can be argued that these morphological and microstructural variations of nanocomposite powders induced by designated ball milling time was found to contribute to an improvement in the density, densification, micro-hardness (HV), nano-hardness (HN), and Young's modulus (E) of Al-5Al₂O₃ nanocomposites. HV, HN, and E values of nanocomposites were increased by ~48%, 46%, and 40%, after 12 h of milling, respectively.
Keywords: Al-Al2O3 nanocomposites; ball milling; mechanical properties; microstructure; physical properties.