Influence of titanium powder characteristics and heating rate on the liquid phase sintering of Fe8%Ti powder compacts.

In view of interest in the use of titanium as an alloying element to the sintering of iron-based powder compacts, an examination has been made of the influence of the characteristics of the titanium powder and heating rate on sintering process. Transient liquid phase sintering was examined for Fe8%Ti powder mixtures. The effect of additions of narrow sized fractions of titanium powder and heating rate on the dimensional changes obtained on sintering Fe8%Ti compacts made with Hoganas NC 100.24 sponge iron and 7, 16, 56 and 200 micrometres titanium powders has been determined. The experimental plan included the effects of several processing variable, such as titanium paricle size, heating rate, sintering temperature and sintering time.Two types of experiments were used to study sintering. The effects has been examined in relation to the sintering mechanism by dilatometry, using a comuterised precision vacuum dilatometer Netzsch 402S with an extended range, constant load single pushrod. In addition to dilatometer experiments, batch sintering was conducted in a vacuum furnace. It was found that the use of fine titanium powder and controlled heating rate reduced the dimensional change.