Bulk Nanostructured Materials

This paper will address three topics of importance to bulk nanostructured materials. Bulk nanostructured materials are defined as bulk solids with nanoscale or partly nanoscale microstructures. This category of nanostructured materials has historical roots going back many decades but has relatively recent focus due to new discoveries of unique properties of some nanoscale materials. Bulk nanostructured materials are prepared by a variety of severe plastic deformation methods, and these will be reviewed. Powder processing to prepare bulk nanostructured materials requires that the powders be consolidated by typical combinations of pressure and temperature, the latter leading to coarsening of the microstructure. The thermal stability of nanostructured materials will also be discussed. An example of bringing nanostructured materials to applications as structural materials will be described in terms of the cryomilling of powders and their consolidation.