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Powder metallurgy
Introduction
Powder metallurgy may be define as the art of producing metal
powders and using them to make serviceable objects.
Powder metallurgy principles were used far back in 3000 B.C. by the
Egyptions to make iron parts.
The use of gold, silver, copper, brass & in powders for ornaments
was common during the middle age.
Recently, materials with mechanical properties far better than those
of conventional materials have been developed by improving heat-
treatment, powder composition and processing methods to achieve
higher densities.
So powder metallurgy has become a manufacturing technique to
produce considerably complex shaped components to exact
dimensions at high rates of production with extremely low costs.
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Basic process of powder metallurgy
The four basic operation of the powder
metallurgy technique are:
1. Manufacture of powder
2. Mixing or blending powder particles
3. Compacting and,
4. Sintering
Manufacture of metal powder
The size of powder particles normally required
in powder metallurgy ranges from 1 to 100
µm; preferably within 10 to 20 µm. For the
manufacture of these sizes of powder particles
the various methods used are:
1. Atomization
2. Reduction of oxides
3. Electrolytic deposition
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Atomization
Atomization is the method
most frequently used for
metals having low melting
points, such as tin, lead, zinc,
cadmium, and aluminum.
As shown in fig. liquid metal is
forced through a small orifice,
a stream of compressed air
cause the metal to disintegrate
and solidify into finely divided
particles.
Atomized products are
generally in the form of the
sphere-shaped particles.
A wide range of particle-size
distribution may be obtained by
varying the temperature of the
metal, pressure and
temperature of the atomizing
gas, rate of flow of metal
through the orifice, and the
design of the orifice and nozzle.
The main advantages of
atomization process is its
flexibility.
When the method is used for
production of powder of
alloyed metals, it offers high
production rate (as high as 18
to 20 tons per hour).
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Reduction of compounds
The reduction of compounds of the metals (usually an oxide) provides a
convenient, economical, and flexible method of producing powders.
The largest volume of metallurgical powder is made by the process of oxide
reduction.
These compounds are heated with reducing agents such as carbon, coal
gas, blast furnace gas, carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2) or dissociated
ammonia, in an atmosphere-controlled furnace.
The particles produced by oxide reduction are spongelike in structure and
are ideal for molding.
The shape is generally jagged and irregular and the particles are porous.
This is only practical method available for producing powders of the
refractory metals such as tungsten and molybdenum.
Oxide reduction is also an economical method of producing powders of
iron, nickel, cobalt, and copper.
Electrolytic deposition
The method of electrolytic
deposition is most suitable for the
production of extremely pure
powder of principally copper and
iron.
Electrolysis is similar to
electroplating.
By regulation of current density,
temperature, circulation of
electrolyte, and proper choice of
electrolyte, the powder may be
directly deposited from the
electrolyte.
The deposit at the bottom of
anode in the tank is periodically
removed during the process.
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The deposit may be a soft
spongy substance which is
subsequently ground to
powder, or the deposit may be
a hard, brittle metal.
Powders obtained from hard,
brittle eletrodeposits are
generally not suitable for
molding purpose.
The shape of electrolytic
powder is generally dendritic,
although the resulting powder
has low density, the dendritic
structure tends to give good
molding properties because of
interlocking of the particles
during compacting.
Compacting
The most important operation next to mixing & blending is
compacting or pressing of the powder particles in powder
metallurgy.
Most compacting is done cold, although there are some
application for which compacts are hot-pressed
The purpose of compacting is to consolidate the powder
into the desired shape and as closely as possible to final
dimensions.
Compacting technique may be classified into two type:
1. Pressure technique such as die, roll pressing, extrusion,
high energy rate forming, vibratory compaction
2. Pressureless technique such as slip casting, continuous
pressureless compaction.
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Die compaction
Die compaction is most widely used
method.
This uses special mechanical or
hydraulic presses including feed
hopper, shaping dies, upper punch &
lower punch. During the operation,
the die cavity is filled with powder
particles through a feed hopper with
definite quantity.
Next, the required pressure is applied
by moving the upper & lower
punches towards each other, and
finally, ejecting the “green compact”
by raising the lower punch further
after moving the upper punch
upwards.
Mechanical presses can provide pressure ranging from 100
kN to 400 kN for producing sintered-bronze bearings.
Higher capacity (1 MN to 5 MN) is used for other metals.
Hydraulic presses can provide even higher pressure, but
slower stroke speeds limit their uses to move complicated
powder metal parts requiring very high pressure.
Mechanical presses have advantages of high speed
production rates, flexibility in design, simplicity, economy of
operation and relatively low investment cost.
Dies are usually made of hardened, ground and lapped tool
steels.
The die punches are made of die steel heat treated to be
slightly softer than the die as they can easily be replaced
compared to dies.
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Extrusion technique
Extrusion technique has been used only
to a limited extent, as it does not give
such an efficient control as that given by
die or roll pressing methods.
Fig. shows the method in which powder
is ‘canned’ or placed in some metal
container.
The sealed container is heated or
evacuated and then extruded.
After extruding, the container material is
removed either mechanically or
chemically.
This method provides compacts with
extremely high density and usually do
not require sintering.
Forging technique is similar for the
extrusion method as explained above.
High energy rate forming
This method may be either
mechanical, pneumatic,
explosive-discharge or spark-
discharge methods.
the advantages of these methods
is the short time & high pressures
that can be applied.
Even low grade & cheap powder
can also be used. Some parts may
be used due to increased strength
of green compacts without
sintering.
Disadvantages include high punch
& die wear, limited tolerance
control and high cost.
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Vibratory compaction
• Vibratory compaction requires application of
pressure & vibration simultaneously to the
powder mass in a rigid die.
• Compared to ordinary die compaction, this
method allows the use of much lower
pressures to achieve given level of density.
• A major limitation is the design of equipment
which can apply vibration to tooling & presses
practically.
Pressureless compacting
Slip casting
Slip casting is widely used for ceramics
but only to a limited extent for metals.
The process consists of preparing a ‘slip’
containing the powder suspended by a
liquid & additives to prevent settling
down of particles.
Then the slip is placed in mold made of
fluid absorbing material to form the slip
casting. After removal from the mould,
slip casting is dried & sintered.
This method is mainly useful for
relatively incompressible materials for
conventional die compaction. The
process definitely takes long time for
the liquid to be removal from the
porous mold.
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Continuous pressureless compaction
• Continuous pressureless compaction is used to produce
porous sheet for electrodes of Ni-Cd batteries. The powder
may be applied in the form of a slurry to be coated on a metal
screen or solid metal sheet to produce unusual composites.
Sintering
The sintering process is usually carried out at a temperature below
the highest melting constituent. In some cases the temperature is
high enough to form a liquid constituent, such as in the manufacture
of cemented carbides, where sintering is done above the melting
point of the binder metal. In other cases, no melting of any
constituent takes place.
Sintering furnaces may be either the electric-resistance type or gas
or oil-fired type. Close control of temperature is necessary to
minimize variation in final dimensions. The very uniform and
accurate temperature of the electric furnace makes it most suitable
for this type of work.
Sintering is essentially a process of bending solid particles by atomic
diffusion. Mechanism of bonding particles during sintering can be
divided into three phases describe as under
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1. Diffusion of atoms between adjacent particle surface at the point
of contact which leads to development of grain boundaries among
themselves
2. Next, the newly formed bonded-areas grow in size by diffusion of
atoms across the grain boundaries
3. The growing size of bonded-areas results into formation of pore
within the grain of larger particles by volume diffusion of atoms.
Finally, with time, the pores are eliminated completely and a
single union of solid mass is produced after sintering is over.
In general, a sintering process requires a careful technical control in
terms of time, temperature, heating rate & cooling rate for
consistent properties t be achieved in final product of powder
metallurgy.
Sintering process can be classified into two groups as:
1. Solid phase sintering,
2. Liquid phase sintering
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Solid phase sintering
In this type of sintering,
neither of the compacted
metals melt but grain
growth & diffusion take
place across the cold-welded
surface which are adjacent.
This leads to adequate
cementing bonding of the
particles into a cellular type
of structure as shown in fig.
Sintering of pure tungsten
can be done by this method.
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Liquid phase sintering
In this type of sintering,
one of the metals melts
which penetrates in
between the particles of
the other metals, thus
alloying results and finally
continuous metallic bond
is established as explained
in mechanism of sintering.
Production of sintered
bronze and cemented
carbide tips is typically
done by this method
Thank you
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