Magnetic properties and the microstructures of magnets prepared by spark plasma sintering were investigated in order to enhance magnetic properties by grain size control. Nd-Fe-B magnets were fabricated by the spark plasma sintering under 30 MPa at various temperatures. The grain size was effectively controlled by the spark plasma sintering and it was possible to make Nd-Fe-B magnets with grain size of 5.9 .

In this study, Platinum(Pt) nanoparticles were synthesized by using polyol process which is one of the liquid phase reduction methods. Dihydrogen hexachloroplatinate (IV) hexahydrate , as a precursor, was dissolved in ethylene glycol and silver nitrate () was added as metal salt for shape control of Pt particle. Also, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), as capping agent, was added to reduce the size of particle and to separate the particles. The size of Pt nanoparticles was evaluated particle size analyzer (PSA). The size and morphology of Pt nanoparticles were observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution TEM (HRTEM). Synthesized Pt nanoparticles were studied with varying time and temperature of polyol process. Pt nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized with controlled sizes in the range 5-10 and 20-40 nm with cube and multiple-cube shapes.

In this study, a high energy ball milling process was employed in order to improve the densification of direct nitrided AlN powder. The densification behavior and the sintered microstructure of the milled AlN powder were investigated. Mixture of AlN powder doped with 5 wt.% as a sintering additive was pulverized and dispersed up to 50 min in a bead mill with very small beads. Ultrafine AlN powder with a particle size of 600 nm and a specific surface area of 9.54 was prepared after milling for 50 min. The milled powders were pressureless-sintered at for 4 h under atmosphere. This powder showed excellent sinterability leading to full densification after sintering at for 4 h. However, the sintered microstructure revealed that the fraction of yitttium aluminate increased with milling time and sintering temperature and the newly-secondary phase of ZrN was observed due to the reaction of AlN with the impurity.

In this study, gradient porous Al-Cu sintered body was fabricated by powder metallurgy processing. Al-Cu powder mixtures were prepared by low energy ball milling with various milling time. After ball milling for 3h, the shape of powder mixtures changed to spherical type with size of 100~500 . Subsequently, Al-Cu powder mixtures were classified (under 150, 150~300 and over 300 ) and compacted (20, 50 and 100 MPa). Then, they were sintered at for various holding time (10, 30, 60 and 120 min) in atmosphere. The sintered bodies had 32~45% of porosity. As a result, the optimum holding time was determined to be 60 min at and sintered bodies with various porosity were obtained by controlling the compacting pressure.

In order to improve the weak mechanical properties of cast Mg alloys, Mg- (at%) alloy powders were synthesized using gas atomization, a typical rapid solidification process. The powders consist of fine dendrite structures less than 3 in arm spacing. In order to fabricate a bulk form, the Mg powders were compacted using magnetic pulse compaction (MPC) under various processing parameters of pressure and temperature. The effects of the processing parameters on the microstructure and mechanical properties were systematically investigated.

Sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets are widely used in many fields such as motors, generators, actuators, microwaves and so on due to their excellent magnetic properties. Many researchers have shown that the Nd-rich phase was essentially important for high magnet properties. In this study, we focused on controlling of the Nd-rich phase to enhance magnetic properties by the cyclic sintering process. Nd-Fe-B based sintered magnets were prepared by isothermal sintering and cyclic sintering processes. Magnetic properties and microstructure of the magnets were investigated. The coercivity was enhanced from 21.2 kOe to 23.27 kOe after 10 cycles of the sintering. The Nd-rich phase was effectively penetrated into the grain boundary between the grains by the cyclic sintering.

Mo nanopowder was synthesized by ball-milling and subsequent hydrogen-reduction of powder. To fabricate ultra fine grained molybdenum, two-step sintering and spark plasma sintering process were employed. The grain size of specimen by two-step sintering and spark plasma sintering was around and , respectively. Mechanical properties of ultra fine grained Mo with relative density of above 90% were significantly improved at room and high temperatures comparing to commercial bulk Mo of 99% relative density. This result was mainly explained by the grain size refinement due to diffusion-controlled sintering.

In this study, the sintering behavior of (Nd, Dy)-Fe-B powder which fabricated by strip-casting was investigated with various sintering temperatures and holding times. The relative density over 99% could be obtained by both sintering at for 1h and sintering at for 20h. The grain growth was observed in sintered specimen at compared to one at . The isothermal sintering process below led to suppress grain growth showing the improved magnetic properties. The phase transformation of Nd-rich was confirmed by X-ray diffraction pattern.

In this study, a convergent heat treatment was performed in certain temperature regions in order to control the microstructures of Nd-rich phases and to reduce thermal stress on grain boundaries which could be caused during expansion and shrinkage of Nd-rich and phases. The difference of thermal expansion coefficient between and Nd-rich phases is the mechanism for convergent heat treatment. The Nd-rich phases which were located in junctions could penetrate into the grain boundaries between phases due to the difference of thermal expansion coefficient. Through the convergent heat treatment, the microcracks that were observed in cyclic heat treatment were not observed and coercivity was increased to 34.05 kOe at 8 cycles.

3-D shape soft magnetic composite parts can be formed by general compaction method of powder metallurgy. In this study, the results on the high density nanostructured Fe-Si/Fe composite prepared by a warm compaction method were presented. Ball-milled Fe-25 wt.%Si powder, pure Fe powder and Si-polymer were mixed and then the powder mixture was compacted at various temperatures and pressures. Pore free density of samples up to 95% theoretical value has been obtained. The warm compacted sample prepared at 650 MPa and 240℃ had highest compaction properties in comparison with other compacts prepared at 300, 400 MPa and room temperature and 120℃. The magnetic properties such as core loss, magnetization saturation and coercivity were measured by B-H curve analyzer and vibration sample magnetometer.

In order to investigate the effect of rapid solidification on the microstructure and the mechanical properties of Al-Zn-Mg system alloys, water atomization was carried out, since the water atomization beared the highest solidification rate among the atomization processes. The as atomized alloy powders consisted of fine grains less than 4 in diameter, and the second particles were not detected on XRD. The microstructure as solidified was maintained even after the spark plasma sintering at the heating rate of 50 K/min. On the other hand, lower rate of 20 K/min induced a formation of particles, resulting in strengthening of the matrix. The density was almost constant at the temperature above 698K. The sintering temperature above 698K had no effect on the strength of the sintered materials.

To improve the filtration efficiency of porous materials used in filters, an extensive specific surface area is required to serve as a site for adsorption of impurities. In this paper, a method for creating a hybridized porous alloy using a powder metallurgical technique to build macropores in an Al-4 wt.% Cu alloy and subsequent surface modification for a microporous surface with a considerably increased specific surface area is suggested. The macropore structure was controlled by granulation, compacting pressure, and sintering; the micropore structure was obtained by a surface modification using a dilute NaOH solution. The specific surface area of surface-modified specimen increased about 10 times compare to as-sintered specimen that comprised of the macropore structure. Also, the surface-modified specimens showed a remarkable increase in micropores larger than 10 nm. Such a hybridized porous structure has potential for application in water and air purification filters, as well as membrane pre-treatment and catalysis.

Sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets have been widely used due to their excellent magnetic properties, especially for driving motors of hybrid and electric vehicles. The microstructure of Nd-Fe-B magnets strongly affects their magnetic properties, in particular the coercivity. Therefore, a post-sintering process like heat-treatment is required for improving the magnetic properties of Nd-Fe-B sintered magnets. In this study, cyclic heat treatment was performed at temperatures between and up to 16 cycles in order to control microstructures such as size and shape of the Nd-rich phase without grain growth of the phase. The 2 cycles specimen at this temperature range showed more homogeneous microstructure which leads to higher coercivity of 35 kOe than as-sintered one.

Aging characteristics and mechanical properties of commercial 7xxx series Al composites were investigated from viewpoint of ceramic contents. After sintering process, sintered densities of blended and composite powder were 95 and 97%, respectively. Each part was solution-treated at for 60 min and aged . And two-step aging was also performed form . The aging behavior of the sintered composite pow-der was different from that of sintered blended powder. The peak aging time of the composite was rapid as well due to strain. Before aging, mechanical properties of sintered composite powder was significantly higher than that of sintered blended powder. These increments of properties were directly affected by ceramic particles. However, after aging, incremental rate of mechanical properties was slowed in the composite