Effects of Mechanical Alloying on Microstructure and Microhardness of Nanocrystalline NiTi Shape Memory Alloy

In this work, nanostructured NiTi shape memory alloy with equal atomic percentage was produced through mechanical alloying. The result exhibited that after 60 h of mechanical alloying of high purity elemental powder mixtures of nickel and titanium by a planetary high-energy ball mill, the Ti dissolved into Ni lattice and NiTi (B2) phase was obtained. The XRD investigations, SEM observations, TEM examinations and microhardness results concluded that this method is a powerful and high productive process for preparing NiTi shape memory alloy with nanocrystalline structure and appropriate morphology.