Dear Colleagues,

Mechanical alloying is widely recognized as a powder processing technique leading to the formation of many non-equilibrium and equilibrium structures, like extended solid solutions, amorphous alloys, nanocrystalline (nanostructured) alloys, intermetallic compounds, or in situ composites. There are many modifications to the process, depending on the nature of the transformation (alloying, milling, mechanochemical reaction). However, the final phase composition and structure always depend on thermodynamic (e.g., mutual solubility of the elements, enthalpy of mixing, differences in atomic radii) and processing (e.g., type of mill, energy of milling, ball-to-powder weight ratio, process control agent) parameters.

The next step following the mechanical alloying process is usually powder compaction, preserving their non-equilibrium structure. Various techniques are employed for powder consolidation, like cold pressing followed by sintering, hot pressing, hot isostatic pressing, explosive compaction, and spark plasma sintering. In many cases, amorphous powder compaction is an alternative to the rapid quenching (casting) technique, which can obtain bulk amorphous alloys and their composites. Compaction of mechanically alloyed powders/composites can also help to overcome many problems related to the traditional manufacturing of metal matrix composites, like particle agglomeration, low wettability, or interfacial reactions.

This Special Issue of Materials will be a detailed overview of recent research and development in the field of mechanical alloying/milling of metallic/ceramic powders followed by their compaction to get bulk amorphous/nanocrystalline materials and composites.

It is my pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue. Full papers, communications, and reviews related to mechanical alloying and powder compaction are all welcome.

Prof. Dariusz Oleszak
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Mechanical alloying
• Mechanical milling
• Mechanochemical reactions
• Amorphous and nanocrystalline powders
• Bulk amorphous and nanostructured alloys
• Metallic composites
• Ceramic composites
• Powder compaction