Molybdenum (Mo) is one of the representative refractory metals for its high melting point, superior thermal conductivity, low density and low thermal expansion coefficient. However, due to its high melting point, it is necessary for Mo products to be fabricated at a high sintering temperature of over 1800-2000 oC. Because this process is expensive and inefficient, studies to improve sintering property of Mo have been researched actively. In this study, we fabricated Mo nanopowders to lower the sintering temperature of Mo and tried to consolidate the Mo nanopowders through ultra high pressure compaction. We first fabricated Mo nanopowders by a mechano-chemical process to increase the specific surface area of the Mo powders. This process includes a high-energy ball milling step and a reduction step in a hydrogen atmosphere. We compacted the Mo nanopowders with ultra high pressure by magnetic pulsed compaction (MPC) before pressureless sintering. Through this process, we were able to improve the green density of the Mo compacts by more than 20% and fabricate a high density Mo sintered body with more than a 95 % sintered density at relatively low temperature.

The high pressure compaction without internal lubricant and the high green density even with the pore free density were achieved by the newly developed die wall lubricant for warm compaction. This developed die wall lubricated warm compaction followed by high temperature sintering resulted in not only the superior mechanical property but also the low dimensional change. In this paper, the effects of increasing the green density on the sintered density, the dimensional change and the mechanical property are mainly discussed