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.

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.