Modern developments in vacuum furnace technologies have led to an increased interest in vacuum sintering of powder metallurgy (PM) steel components owing to the robustness, productivity and the possibility to integrate heat-treatment into the process at an attractive cost. In the present study, the potential for vacuum sintering of chromium-alloyed PM steels and the effect of the vacuum level on the final properties of the components are evaluated. The studies were performed on Fe-1.8 wt.% Cr powder and the sintering experiments were performed in a dilatometer. Four different vacuum levels: 10, 1, 10−2 and 10−4 mbar were studied and the effect of density and carbon content were also examined. The results indicate an efficient oxide reduction and process robustness at intermediate vacuum levels whereas high-temperature sintering in high vacuum brings the risk of Cr-sublimation. Furthermore, industrial trails were performed at 10 and 1 mbar vacuum levels and their mechanical properties were evaluated. Vacuum sintering proved to be an attractive alternative to process Cr-alloyed steel powders.

Reaching high density in PM steels is important for high-performance applications. In this study, liquid phase sintering of PM steels by adding gas-atomized Ni-Mn-B master alloy was investigated for enhancing the density levels of Fe-and Mo-prealloyed steel powder compacts. The results indicated that liquid formation occurs in two stages, beginning with the master alloy melting (LP-1) below and eutectic phase formation (LP-2) above 1373 K (1100°C). Mo and C addition revealed a significant influence on the LP-2 temperatures and hence on the final densification behavior and mechanical properties. Microstructural embrittlement occurs with the formation of continuous boride networks along the grain boundaries, and its severity increases with carbon addition, especially for 2.5 wt pct of master alloy content. Sintering behavior, along with liquid generation, microstructural characteristics, and mechanical testing revealed that the reduced master alloy content from 2.5 to 1.5 wt pct (reaching overall boron content from 0.2 to 0.12 wt pct) was necessary for obtaining good ductility with better mechanical properties. Sintering with Ni-Mn-B master alloy enables the sintering activation by liquid phase formation in two stages to attain high density in PM steels suitable for high-performance applications.

A novel approach to reach full density in powder metallurgy (PM) components is demonstrated in this work. Water-atomised Moprealloyed steel powder is utilised for manufacturing cylindrical and gear samples through double pressing and double sintering (DPDS) process route. The effect of sample geometry and powder size fraction on densification is investigated and it is found that the DPDS route enables a density level of > 95% which is sufficient to eliminate the surface open pores. Reaching such high density is necessary, in order to perform capsule-free hot isostatic pressing (HIP). After HIP, full densification is achieved for the cylindrical samples and only near full density is realised for the gears resulting in neutral zone formation due to the density gradient. In order to predict the densification behaviour during the compaction, FEM simulations considering the gear geometry are performed for both the pressing stages and HIP. The simulation predicted a similar densification behaviour with the formation of the neutral zone. The proposed DPDS route with capsule-free HIP in combination with FEM simulation is demonstrated as a potential route for manufacturing full-density PM steel components, e.g. gears, suitable for high-performance applications.

No abstract

Powder metallurgy (PM) steel with enhanced density is essential for meeting the demands on high strength and high-performance applications. In this study, cold isostatic pressing (CIP) is applied for consolidating water-atomised iron and Cr-alloyed steel powder to reach about 95% densification before sintering. Additionally, the effect of the lubricant and graphite addition on the compressibility of the different base powder types was evaluated. The maximum green densities of ≈7.55 g cm −3 for iron powder and ≈7.45 g cm −3 for Cr-alloyed powder were reached after CIP at 800 MPa. The sintering at 1250°C with added graphite allowed to achieve increased densification to ≈7.60 g cm −3 for the iron and ≈7.50 g cm −3 for Cr-alloyed grades, respectively. These levels were sufficient for surface pore closure, which allowed the application of the capsule-free hot isostatic pressing (HIP) after sintering to reach full density. This approach paves the way for manufacturing large-sized PM components.