Materials preparation by ball milling

Ball milling is an important method for the preparation of materials both for the investigation of fundamental physical properties and for a number of possible commercial applications. In the present report, the basic principles of ball milling are discussed. This includes a brief overview of experimental techniques as well as an introduction to modeling methods used to analyze milling processes. This will be followed with a discussion of some of the experiments involving ball milling that are being conducted at Dalhousie University. Specifically, a summary of results on mechanically alloyed Fe-A1 and experimental studies of the formation of metal hydrides by ball milling will be presented.