| Abstract | Mechanical alloying of binary Nb-Zr powder mixtures was carried out to evaluate the formation of metastable phases in this immiscible system. The milled powders were characterized for their constitution and structure by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy methods. It was shown that an amorphous phase had formed on milling the binary powder mixture for about 10?h and that it had crystallized on subsequent milling up to 50–70 h, referred to as mechanical crystallization. Thermodynamic and structural arguments have been presented to explain the formation of the amorphous phase and its subsequent crystallization. |