In all conventional sintered PM products, the pores present are of two types, primary and secondary. Primary pores forming during compaction and latter during sintering, due to penetration of formed liquid through the matrix grain boundary. Effect of carbon addition on diffusion of Cu in SH737-2Cu system was investigated. After compaction and transient liquid phase sintering at and , samples were characterized for densification, showing rise in sintering density and reduction in swelling on carbon addition. Quantitative microstructural characterization (shape factor and pore size) revealed bimodal distribution for 0% carbon, more rounded pores for 0.9% carbon and higher sintering temperature, and pore coarsening at higher sintering temperature.

The effects of compaction pressure and sintering temperature on the densification of Fe-40wt%Ni alloy nanoparticles were analyzed. The Fe-Ni nanoparticles were fabricated by an arc-discharge method and then, compacted at three different pressures and sintered at 550 to . Densification was completed at temperature as low as and high-pressure compaction was found to enhance densification. Densification behaviors and microstructure developments have been investigated through density measurements, electron microscopies, and hardness measurements.

Nanostructured Alumina - 20 vol% 3YSZ composites powder were synthesized by wet-milling technique. The starting materials were a mixture of Alumina micro-powder and 3YSZ nano-powders. Nano-crystalline grains were obtained after 24 h milling time. The nano-structured powder compacts were then processed to full density at different temperatures by high-frequency induction heat sintering (HFIHS). Effects of temperature on the mechanical and microstructure properties have been studied. composites with higher mechanical properties and small grain size were successfully developed at relatively low temperatures through this technique.

Densification behavior of nano-agglomerate powder during pressureless sintering of Fe-Ni nanopowder was investigated in terms of diffusion kinetics and microstructural development. To understand the role of agglomerate boundary for sintering process, densification kinetics of Fe-Ni nano-agglomerate powder with different agglomerate size was investigated. It was found that activation energy for densification was lower in the small-sized agglomerate powder. The increase in the volume fraction of inter-agglomerate boundary acting as high diffusion path might be responsible for the enhanced diffusion process.

It is known that powder characteristics including particle size and distribution, particle shape, and chemical composition are important parameters which influence direct laser sintering of metal powders. In this paper, we introduce a first order kinetics model for densification of steel powders during laser sintering. A densification coefficient (K) is defined which express the potential of different powders to be laser-sintered to a high density dependent on their particle characteristics.

An apparatus measuring changes of various forces directly and continuously was developed by a way of direct touch between powders and transmitting force component, which can be used to study forces state of powders during warm compaction. Using the apparatus, warm compaction processes of iron-based powder materials containing different lubricants at different temperatures were studied. Results show that densification of the iron-based powder materials can be divided into four stages, in which powder movement changes from robustness to weakness, while its degree of plastic deformation changes from weakness to robustness.

Densification behavior of iron powder under cold stepped compaction was studied. Experimental data were also obtained for iron powder under cold stepped compaction. The elastoplastic constitutive equation based on the yield function of Shima and Oyane was implemented into a finite element program (ABAQUS) to simulate compaction responses of iron powder during cold stepped compaction. Finite element results were compared with experimental data for densification, deformed geometry and density distribution.

Densification behavior of various metal and ceramic powder was investigated under cold compaction. The Cap model was proposed based on the parameters obtained from axial and radial deformation of sintered metal powder compacts under uniaxial compression and volumetric strain evolution. For ceramic powder, the parameters were obtained from deformation of green powder compacts under triaxial compression. The Cap model was implemented into a finite element program (ABAQUS) to compare with experimental data for densification behavior of various metal and ceramic powder under cold compaction.

Both densification and grain growth are driven by the reduction of the interfacial area, kinetics of which depends strongly on the interface structure. Abnormal grain coarsening in the system of singular solid/liquid interface such as WC-Co alloys was explained by the growth mechanism of 2-dimensional nucleation. Based on this concept, the marked inhibition of coarsening of WC grains by VC addition can be approached by the increase in the step free energy, which increases the barrier of 2-dimensional nucleation. The activated sintering in tungsten powders can be approached by the interface structure change induced by the addition of a small amount of nickel.

In recent years, equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) has been the subject of intensive study due to its capability of producing fully dense samples having a ultrafine grain size. In this paper, the ECAP process was applied to metallic powders in order to achieve both powder consolidation and grain refinement. In the ECAP process for solid and powder metals, knowledge of the internal stress, strain and strain rate distribution is fundamental to the determination of the optimum process conditions for a given material. The properties of the ECAP processed solid and powder materials are strongly dependent on the shear plastic deformation behavior during ECAP, which is controlled mainly by die geometry, material properties, and process conditions. In this study, we investigated the consolidation, plastic deformation and microstructure evolution behaviour of the powder compact during ECAP.

In-situ processing route was adopted to disperse carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into powders homogeneously. The composite powders with homogeneous dispersion of CNTs could be synthesized by a catalytic route for in-situ formation of CNTs on nano-sized Fe dispersed powders. CNTs/Fe/ nanopowders were densified by spark plasma sintering (SPS). The hardness and bending strength as well as electrical conductivity increased with increasing sintering temperature. However, the electrical conductivity of the composites sintered at above showed decreased value with increasing sintering temperature due to the oxidation of CNTs

In this study, AR (aromatic resin) pitch was employed as the matrix-precursor for carbon/carbon composite because it exhibits much higher coke yield than coal tar pitch. As a result, a fabrication process of carbon/carbon composites can be shortened. It has been known that the pitches may cause swolling problem during the carbonization process. In order to restrain the swelling occurrence, a small quantity of carbon black was added to the AR pitch. Due to addition of carbon black the swelling was decreased largely and the perform can be infiltrated with the AR pitch. The densification efficiency of the performs was compared with various matrix-precursors. The coke yield of matrixprecursors, the morphology and the degree of graphitization of carbon matrix were analyzed.

In the study, a hybrid constitutive model for densification of metallic powders was applied to cold isostatic pressing. The model is based on a pressure-dependent plasticity model for porous materials combined with a dislocation density-based viscoplastic constitutive model considering microstructural features such as grain size and inter-particle spacing. Comparison of experiment and calculated results of microscale and nanoscale Cu powders was made. This theoretical approach is useful for powder densification analysis of various powder sizes, deformation routes and powder processing methods.