The 304 stainless steel powders were prepared by high energy ball milling and subsequently sintered byspark plasma sintering, and the microstructural characteristics and micro-hardness were investigated. The initial size ofthe irregular shaped 304 stainless steel powders was approximately 42 µm. After high energy ball milling at 800 rpmfor 5h, the powders became spherical with a size of approximately 2 µm, and without formation of reaction compounds.From TEM analysis, it was confirmed that the as-milled powders consisted of the aggregates of the nano-sized particles.As the sintering temperature increased from 1073K to 1573K, the relative density and micro-hardness of sintered sampleincreased. The sample sintered at 1573K showed the highest relative density of approximately 95% and a micro-hard-ness of 550 Hv.

• Si Young Chang(Department of Materials Engineering, Korea Aerospace University) Corresponding Author
• Sung-Tag Oh(Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology)
• Myung-Jin Suk(Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, Kangwon National University)
• Chan Seok Hong(Graduate Student, Department of Materials Engineering, Korea Aerospace University)