Powder metallurgy processing of ruthenium aluminum alloys

The present work discusses the powder metallurgy processing of ruthenium aluminide by a sequence of attrition milling, cold compaction followed by sintering at high temperature. X-ray diffraction patterns for the attrition milled powder mixture of composition Ru47Al53 revealed that RuAl phase was formed after 7 h of milling. For the case of milled ternary alloys of RuAlNi, the intensity of the nickel peaks decreased with milling time. Up to 81% theoretical density was obtained for the cold compacted pellets after sintering at 1400 °C for 24 h. Microstructure of the sintered samples revealed micro-porosities and RuAl phase formation along with weakly alloyed phases of ruthenium and aluminum. The microstructures were characterized by using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive X-ray analysis.