Tool steels serve a large range of applications including hot and cold workings of metals and injection mouldings of plastics or light alloys. The high speed steels (HSS) are specifically used as cutting tools and wear parts because it has high strength, wear resistance and hardness along with appreciable toughness and fatigue resistance. From the view of HSS microstructure, it can be described as metallic matrix composites formed by a ferrous with a dispersion of hard and wear resistant carbides. The experimental specimens were manufactured using the PIM with T42 powders (50~80 vol.%) and polymer (20~50 vol.%). The green parts were debinded in n-hexane solution at for 8 hours and thermal debinded at an mixed gas atmosphere for 8 hours. Specimens were sintered in high vacuum ( Torr) and various temperatures.

High speed steels (HSS) were used as cutting tools and wear parts, because of high strength, wear resistance, and hardness together with an appreciable toughness and fatigue resistance. Conventional manufacturing process for production of components with HSS was used by casting. The powder metallurgy techniques were currently developed due to second phase segregation of conventional process. The powder injection molding method (PIM) was received attention owing to shape without additional processes. The experimental specimens were manufactured with T42 HSS powders (59 vol%) and polymer (41 vol%). The metal powders were prealloyed water-atomised T42 HSS. The green parts were solvent debinded in normal n-Hexane at for 24 hours and thermal debinded at mixed gas atmosphere for 14 hours. Specimens were sintered in , gas atmosphere and vacuum condition between 1200 and . In result, polymer degradation temperatures about optimum conditions were found at and . After sintering at gas atmosphere, maximum hardness of 310Hv was observed at . Fine and well dispersed carbide were observed at this condition. But relative density was under 90%. When sintering at gas atmosphere, relative density was observed to 94.5% at . However, the low hardness was obtained due to decarbonization by hydrogen. In case of sintering at the vacuum of torr at temperature of , full density and 550Hv hardness were obtained without precipitation of MC and in grain boundary.

P/M high speed steel (1.26% C, 4.42% Cr, 6.54% W, 4.92% Mo, 3.21 % V, 8.77% Co, bal. Fe) was applied to hot former die. It showed that the die life became 2.7 times higher than that of cast/wrought SKH 55 tool steel which is commercially used. The increase of die life was corresponding to the improved hardness and transverse rupture strength of PM high speed steel due to the finer grain and carbide as well as the uniform carbide distribution. The P/M high speed steel with the promoted die life could be an alternative to the conventional SKH55.

Based on the comparison of structures and properties of the HS6-5-2 high speed steels made with the powder injection moulding method, pressureless forming, compacting and sintering, and commercial steels made with the ASEA-STORA method, fine carbides spread evenly in the steel matrix were found in the structure of all tested high-speed steels in the sintered state. The steels made with the pressureless forming method are characteristic of the lowest sintering temperature and the highest density, resulting from the high carbon concentration coming from the binding agent degradation.

본 연구에서는 고속철도 강합성형 교통비 동적해석에 기반한 피로신뢰성평가 기법을 제시하고 동조질량감쇠기의 효과를 피로수명연장 측면에서 검토하였다. 피로 신뢰성 평가를 수행하기 위하여 S-N 곡선 및 선형누적손상이론을 이용하여 한계상태식을 설정하였다. 열차 속도와 교량 감쇠비의 불확실성을 고려하여 교량에 대한 반복적인 동적해석을 수행하고, 이 결과로부터 전체 교량수명동안에 교량이 받는 피로 손상도와 연관된 확률변수의 특성을 통계적으로 추정하였다. 최종적으로 결정된 확률변수와 한계상태식에 개선된 일계이차모멘트법(AFOSM)을 적용하여 피로 신뢰도 지수를 산정하였다. 40m 지간 강합성교량의 수치모사로부터 동조질량감쇠기 장착여부에 따라 피로 신뢰도 지수를 평가하고 그 결과를 제시하였다.

The effect of tempering temperature on the three point bending fatigue behavior of a P/M high speed steel JYPS-23 (1.28% C, 4.20% Cr, 6.40% W, 5.00% Mo, 3.10% V, bal. Fe) was investigated. The number of cycles to failure of the specimen austenitized at drastically increased with increasing tempering temperature. As tempering temperature increased from 500 to , the volume fraction and average size of carbides (MC or M6C) did not significantly changed, while hardness decreased drastically. The reduced hardness is due to the softening of matrix, which increased the resistance of the fatigue crack propagation. For a practical application, powder compacting test were also conducted with the P/M high speed steel punches tempered at 500, 580, and . The number of compacting cycles to failure of the punches also increased with increasing tempering temperature.

For the purpose of investigating the effect of sintering atmosphere and carbon addition on sintered density and microstructural characteristics, the M3/2 grade high speed steel powders with the addition of carbon are sintered in vacuum and gas atmosphere. With the addition of 0 wt%C, 0.45wt%C and 1.15 wt%C the optimum sintering temperatures decrease down to , and respectively for the vacuum sintered specimen, and also decrease down to , and for the gas sintered specimen. The threshold temperatures for full densification decrease steeply with increasing carbon content of the sintered specimen, while this temperatures are slowly decreased at high carbon content. The vacuum sintered specimen shows the primary carbides of MC and type at the optimum sintering temperature, and eutectic carbides of and Fe-Cr type are produced in the oversintered specimen. The gas sintered specimen exhibits M6C and Fe-Cr type primary carbides at the optimum sintering temperature. The eutectic carbides of and Fe-Cr type and MX type carbonitride are shown for the oversintered specimen in the gas atmosphere. The hardness of gas sintered specimen shows high value of 830-860 Hv due to the increment of carbide precipitation.

A P/M high speed steel of ASP 30 grade was austenitized, gas quenched and tempered at various conditional. The mechanical properties such as hardness, bend strength and fracture toughness were evaluated after heat treatment. The microstructure and the type and volume fraction of carbides were analyzed by an optical microscope, image analyzer and XRD. The primary carbides after the heat treatment were MC and type. The volume of the total carbide varied from 10 to 15% depending on the austenitizing and tempering temperature. The tempering temperature for maximum hardness was at around 52. But the maximum bend strength was obtained at about 55. The fracture toughness was largely affected by the presence of retained austenite after gas quenching and secondary hardening during tempering.

An investigation was performed to apply the M3/2 grade high speed steel for metal injection molding using both prealloyed and elementally blended powders. The injected samples were subjected to a debinding step in gas atmosphere at a ratio that affected the carbon content of the material. The carbon content ranged from 1.4wt.% to 1.43wt%. with increasing content up to 80% in atmosphere for the prealloyed powders. The carbon contents of the elementally blended powders exhibited 1.44wt.% and 1.62wt.% at 10% and 20% gas, respectively. This level decreased to 0.17wt.% upon increasing the content. The sintered density of both powders increased rapidly as the temperature reached the liquid phase forming temperature. After forming the liquid phase, the density rapidly increased to the optimum sintering temperature for the prealloyed powders, whereas the density of mixed elemental powders goes up slowly to the optimum sintering temperature. The optimum sintering temperature and density are 126 and 97.3% for the prealloyed powders and 128 and 96.9% for the elementally blended powders, respectively. The microstructure of the specimen at the optimum sintering temperature consisted of fine grains with primary carbides of MC and type for the prealloyed powders. The elementally blended powders exhibited coarse grains with eutectic carbides of MC, and type.

Cobalt and VC powders were ball milled with M2 grade high speed steel powders under various ball to powder ratios. The powders milled under higher ball to powder ratio become finer, more irregular and have a broader size distribution, and thus possess a lower compressibility and a better sinterability regarding densification. Increasing the ball to powder ratio lowered the sintering temperature to obtain the density level necessary to isolate all the pores. Lowering the sintering temperature is very critical to maintain fine microstructure since grain and carbide coarsening are accelerated by higher sintering temperature due to more liquid phase formation. The powders obtained by ball milling at 20 to 1 ratio has the lowest compressibility but has the best sinterability, almost compatible to unmilled pure M2 powders. A sintered body over 97% theoretical density with fine microstructures having average grain size of ~10 microns was obtained from the powder by sintering at 1260 for 1 hour in vacuum. XRD results indicate that two types of carbides are mainly present in the sintered structure, MC and type. The MC type carbides are more or less round shaped and mainly located at the grain boundaries whereas the type are angular shaped and mainly located inside the grains.

The densification behavior during a sintering of M2 and T15 grade high speed steel powder compacts was reported. Sintered densities over 98% theoretical were achieved by a liquid phase sintering in vacuum for both grades. The optimum sintering temperature range where full densification could be achieved without excessive carbide coarsening and incipient melting was much narrower in M2 than in T15 grade. The sintering response was mainly affected by the type of carbides present. The primary carbides in M2 were identified as type whereas those in T15 were MC type which provides wider sintering range. The addition of elemental carbon up to 0.3% lowered the optimum sintering temperature for both grades, but had little effect on expanding the sintering range and sintered structure.

The effect of the role of alloyed components on the densification of two kind of high speed steel (mixed and prealloyed powder), which were sintered at 1403~ 1573 K for 7.2 ks in vacuum, was investigated. The results obtained were as follows. (1) Without the presence of Vanadium (V), the relative density of sintered compacts (Ds) could not reached the density of 100% regardless of the. elements in the compacts. (2) The addition of V up to 2 mass% did not result In the complete densification when the carbon content was fixed at 2% in the compact. (3) With the fixed amount of V of 7%, Ds decreased with the increase of the carbon content. (4) The addition of mixed fine powder to the prealloyed powder in the range of 20 to 40% provided the complete densification and carbide panicles of 1~2 through the solid phase sintering. (5) The V element played important role in controlling the complete or incomplete densification of the sintered compacts in the alloyed component because of its formation of stable oxide and carbide as well as the low equilibrium pressure of CO gas.