The Dimensional Change in the Sintering of a Plain Iron Powder and High-Alloyed Iron Powder Mixtures

In plain iron powder or powder mixtures sintering process, it is very important to control the dimensional change. In the sintering associated events, such as lubricant removal, atomic motion and phase transformation could change dimensions over a wide range. Dilatometric analysis has shown that most contributions in the dimensional change in the sintering of iron powder mixtures were due to the combination of several effects occurring in all stages of the processing, including the heating and cooling stages. The present paper has the objective of studying the dimensional behavior and to determine the transformation temperature of a composite powder mixture of a plain iron powder with various additions of high-alloyed steel, carbon, nickel and lubricant powders, during sintering by dilatometric analysis.