The sintering characteristics of commercial 7xxx series Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy have been investigated. Sintering system of this blended elemental powder has aspects of both transient and supersolidus liquid phase sintering. Transient liquids occur when the constitution point during sintering lies in a solid phase region but where the sintering temperature is greater than either the melting point of one of the constituent or a eutectic temperature. Supersolidus liquid phase sintering occurs when a preblended powder is heated to a temperature between the solidus and liquids. However, these reaction were restrained their inter diffusion due to the appearance of the oxide film. Thus, 7xxx series Al alloy is extremely sensitive to process variables, including particle size, holding time and sintering temperature. Therefore, above phenomenons were observed formation and behaviour of the liquid by using SEM and DSC.

TiNi bodies were produced from (Ti＋Ni) powder mixture by spark-plasma sintering procerg. The sintering behavior was investigated through the measurement of change in density, densification rate, phase analysis and microstructure. Irrespective of heating rate, sintered bodies with above 97％ relative density could be obtained. TiNi with B2 structure was confirmed as the major phase and , unreacted Ti, Ni as the second phase. Increase in heating rate suppressed a formation of intermediate phase during sintering process. Increase in holding time at sintering temperature led to a compositional homogenization.

Recently, the fabrication process of W-Cu nanocomposite powders has been researched to improve the sinterability by mechanochemical process (MCP), which consists of ball milling and hydrogen-reduction with W- and Cu-oxide mixture. However, there are many control variables in this process because the W oxides are hydrogen-reduced via several reduction stages at high temperature over 80 with susceptive reduction conditions. In this experiment, the W-15 wt%Cu nanocomposite powder was fabricated with the ball-milling and hydrogen-reduction process using W and CuO powder. The microstructure of the fabricated W-Cu nanocomposite powder was homogeneously composed of the fine W particles embedded in the Cu matrix. In the sintering process, the solid state sintering was certainly observed around 85 at the heating rate of 1/min. It is considered that the solid state sintering at low temperature range should occur as a result of the sintering of Cu phase between aggregates. The specimen was fully densified over 98% for theoretical density at 120 for 1 h with the heating rate of 1/min.

WC-6wt%Co hard metal powders were sintered by a 2.45 GHz multimode microwave applicator in Ar atmosphere. Microwave sintering of WC-6wt%Co powder lowered the sintering temperature and shortened the processing time in less than two hours than by a conventional method. Microstructures of the sintered specimen were studied with scanning electron microscope (SEM) and no abnormal grain growth was observed. Mechanical properties were similar to the values of the specimens sintered by a conventional method. Specimen sintered at 135 for 30 minutes ,hewed 99%, 20.5 GPa and 8.1 MPa of theoretical density, hardness and fracture strength, respectively.

1) Using a developed high-frequency induction heated sintering method, the rapid densification of WC-Co hard materials was accomplished using ultra fine powders with 260 nm size within 1 minute. 2) The relative density of the composite was 99.5% for the applide pressure of 60MPa and the induced current for 90% output of total capacity. 3) The grain size of WC-Co hard materials is about 260nm and the average thickness of the binder phase determined is about 11nm. The fracture toughness and the hardness of this work 12 , respectively. 4) Using pressureless sintering, we produced dense WC-Co hard materials with a relative density of 97% without applying pressure.