Abstract
The current paper investigates the fabrication of nanostructured intermetallic alloys Ni
3Al starting from elemental nanopowders Ni and Al micro-alloyed with different compositions of submicron B and Nb metal powders. Low-energy reaction synthesis (RS) of the nanopowder green's compact in an air furnace was successfully carried out from which a nanostructured micro-alloyed Ni
3Al alloy was successfully produced. The nanopowders were completely reacted to form the intended single-phase nanostructured Ni
3Al with no remaining nanopowders up to 0.3 and 4
wt% compositions of B and Nb, respectively, with a maximum relative density of 90%. Microstructure examination revealed that the micro-alloyed Ni
3Al alloys produced contain very fine grain structures (120–140
nm) which resulted in an almost 200% increase in the microhardness, as well as a considerable increase in the final product ductility as a result of small micro-alloying additions of B (0.1
wt%) and Nb (up to 4
wt%). Both SEM/EDS analysis and XRD were used to examine the phase compositions after the in situ reactive processing.