Impact-induced disordering of intermetallic phases during mechanical processing

A detailed study on the disordering of the equilibrium compound NiTi2 under mechanical processing conditions is reported. The characterization of the milling regime, together with the application of refined X-rays analysis techniques, allowed for the quantitative kinetic description of the amorphization process as a function of the number of impacts. Experimental findings show that the phase transformation follows first-order kinetics. Complete disordering of the crystalline lattice required about ten millions of impacts.