  The study of the magnetic properties depending upon mechanical milling of the
ferromagnetic polycrystalline TbAl_2 material is reported. The Rietveld
analysis of the X-ray diffraction data reveals a decrease of the grain size
down to 14 nm and -0.15 % of variation of the lattice parameter, after 300
hours of milling time. Irreversibility in the zero field cooled - field cooled
(ZFC-FC) DC-susceptibility and clear peaks in the AC susceptibility between 5
and 300 K show that the long-range ferromagnetic structure is inhibited in
favour of a disordered spin arrangement below 45 K. This glassy behaviour is
also deduced from the variation of the irreversibility transition with the
field (H^{2/3}) and frequency. The magnetization process of the bulk TbAl_2 is
governed by domain wall thermal activation processes. By contrast, in the
milled samples, cluster-glass properties arise as a result of cooperative
interactions due to the substitutional disorder. The interactions are also
influenced by the nanograin structure of the milled alloys, showing a variation
of coercivity with the grain size, below the crossover between the multi- and
single-domain behaviours.
