Metal Injection Molding of Nickel-Free Austenitic Stainless-Steels I-Manufacturing Process

Ni-free austenitic steels containing high nitrogen have been developed to protect against earth resource. High nitrogen steels (HNS) have a lot of advantages, e.g., HNS have high strength, corrosion resistance, toughness, work hardening rate and large rocking parameter in the Hall-Petch equation. On the other hand, it is difficult to fabricate HNS by IM method under 0.1 MPa and to work at room temperature. We have tried to make HNS by combined use of metal injection molding method (MIM) and nitrogen absorption method. Powder compositions used was Fe-17Cr-12Mn-3Mo.The benefit of this method is to make metal parts in near net shape. In order to use this method, we should know the sintering heat schedule, timing for introducing nitrogen gas, gas pressure and setter material etc. Therefore, the shrinkage rate, density and the solution-treated microstructure of MIM compacts were examined to find out the optimum conditions.