Abstract
The A15 intermetallic compound Nb3Au was subjected to grinding in a high-energy ball mill. A phase transformation from the A15 phase to the high-temperature BCC solid solution of gold in niobium was observed after milling. Differential scanning calorimetry revealed an exothermic peak with a heat content of 4.6 kJ mol-1. The activation energy was 435 kJ mol-1. The present result is very similar to the previous results on the V3Ga compound. The energies involved in the order-disorder reactions for these two compounds scale very well. These results, together with similar results obtained by other authors, strongly support the concept of energy storage by ball milling mainly in the form of atomic disorder.