The conventional debinding process in metal injection molding is very long time-consuming and unfriendly environmental method. Especially, in such a case of injection molded parts from hard and fine metal powder, such as WC-Co, an extremely long period of time is necessary in the conventional slow binder removal process. On the other hand, supercritical debinding is thought to be the effective method which is appropriate to eliminate the aforementioned inconvenience in the prior art. The supercritical fluid has high diffusivity and density, it can penetrate quickly into the inside of the green metal bodies, and extract the binder. In this paper, super-critical debinding is compared with wicking debinding process. Wax-based binder system is used in this study. The binder removal rate in supercritical have been measured at , 75 in the pressure range from 20 MPa to 28 MPa. Pores and cracks in silver bodies after sintering were observed using SEM When the super-critical debinding was carried out at 75, almost all the wax (about 70 wt% of binder) was removed in 2 hours under 28 MPa and 2.5 hours under 25 MPa.
Metallic tin powder with diameter less than 50 nm was synthesized by inert gas condensation method and subsequently oxidized to tin oxide () along the two heat-treatment routes. The powder of single phase with a tetragonal structure was obtained by the heat-treatment route with intermediate annealing step-wise oxidation, whereas the powder with mixture of orthorhombic and tetragonal phases was obtained by the heat-treatment route without intermediate annealing (direct oxidation). gas sensors fabricated from the nano-phase powders were investigated by structural observations as well as measurement of electrical resistance. The gas sensors fabricated from the mixed-phase powder exhibited much lower sensitivity against gas than those fabricated from the powder of tetragonal phase. Reduced sensitivity of gas sensors with the new orthorhombic phase was attributed to detrimental effects of phase boundaries between orthorhombic and tetragonal phases and many twin boundaries on the charge mobility.
The semiconducting compound has been recognized as a thermoelectric material with excel-lent oxidation resistance and stable characteristics at elevated temperature. In the present work, we applied mechanical alloying(MA) technique to produce compound using a mixture of elemental iron and silicon powders. The mechanical alloying was carried out using a Fritsch P-5 planetary mill under Ar gas atmosphere. The MA powders were characterized by the X-ray diffraction with Cu-K radiation, thermal analysis and scanning electron microscopy. The single phase has been obtained by mechanical alloying of mixture powders for 120 hrs or for 70 hrs coupled with the subsequent heat treatment up to . The grain size of powders analyzed by Hall plot method was 44nm.
Abstract To investigate the effect of mechanical alloying process to thermoelectric properties of PbTe sintered body, Pb-Te mixed powder with Pb : Te : 1 : 1 composition was mechanically alloyed using tumbler-ball mill. Thermoelectric properties of the sintered body were evaluated by measuring of the Seebeck coefficient and specific electric resistivity from the room temperature to 50. Sintered body of only mechanically alloyed PbTe powder showed p-type behavior at the room temperature, and occurred type transition from p-type to n-type at about 30. PbTe sintered body which was fabricated using heat treated powder in atmosphere after mechanical alloying showed stable n-type behavior under 50. N-type PbTe sintered body fabricated by mechanical alloying process had 4 times higher power factor than that fabricated by the melt-crushing process. Application of a mechanical alloying process to fabricate of n-type PbTe thermoelectric material seemed to be useful to increase the power factor of PbTe sintered body.
Formation of pores in melt-processed (123) oxides and its effect on the microstructure were studied. Spherical pores with a size of a few tens of microns were formed due to the evolution of oxygen gas during melting of a 123 oxide. Some of pores were converted into liquid pockets by liquid filling, but others remained unfilled. The liquid pockets were converted into spherical 123 regions with a lower (211)density through the peritectic reaction during subsequent cooling, while the pores were entrapped into the periteictically grown 123 grains. The spherical 123 regions often consists of a residual melt due to the unbalanced peritectically reaction.
A centrifugally atomized 2024A1/SiC/sub p/ composites were extruded to study effect of clusters on mechanical properties, and a model was proposed that the strength of MMCs would be estimated from the load transfer model approach that taken into consideration of the clusters. This model has been successfully utilized to predict the strength and fracture toughness of MMCs. The experimental and calculated results show coincidence and that the fracture toughness decreases with increasing the volume fraction of particles. On the basis of experimental observations, we suggest that the strength and fracture toughness of particle reinforced MMCs may be calculated from; σ/sub y/=σ/sub m/V/sub m/+σ/sub r/(V/sub r/-V/sub c)-σ/sub r/V/sub c/, K/sub IQ/=σ/sub Y/((3πt)((r/sub r//V/sub r/)(r/sub c//V/sub c/))/sup 1/2/)/sup 1/2/, respectively.
The ferroelectric properties of barium titanate strongly depend on its microstructure, in particular, grain size and distribution. During sintering, usually exhibits abnormal grain growth, which deteriorates considerably the ferroelectric properties. A typical technique to suppress the abnormal grain growth is the addition of dopants. Dopant addition, however, affects the ferroelectric properties and thus limits the application of . Here, we report a simple but novel technique to prevent the abnormal grain growth of and to overcome the limitation of dopant use. The technique consists of stepwise sintering in a reducing atmosphere and in an oxidizing atmosphere. The materials prepared by the present technique exhibit uniform grain size and high dielectric properties. The technique should provide opportunities of having -based materials with superior ferroelectric properties.