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As of today, metals and alloys are widely utilized as structural, mechanical, electrical, and magnetic materials in every aspect of technology and industry. The complexity and diversity of metals applications emphasize the need for a new production method to quickly and easily manufacture metallic components. Spark plasma sintering as a new solid-state sintering method has been recently developed to respond to these needs. Up to now, numerous papers and researches have been published in the field of spark plasma sintering and its ability to manufacture metallic samples. Density is a significant property that has a great influence on the physical, mechanical, and functional properties of... 

In the present work, the role of graphite addition on the laser sintering of iron powder was studied. Powder mixtures containing iron and 0.4, 0.8, 1.2, and 1.6 wt.% graphite were prepared by blending elemental powders. These powders were sintered layer-by-layer under nitrogen atmosphere using a continuous wave CO2 laser beam. A laser power of 70-225 W, scan rate of 50-600 mm s-1, scan line spacing of 0.1-0.3 mm, and layer thickness of 0.1 mm was used. It was found that the processing parameters play a key role on the densification of the iron-graphite powder mixtures. The addition of graphite enhances the densification of the iron powder and improves the surface quality of the laser... 

The densification behavior and the attendant microstructural features of iron powder processed by direct laser sintering were investigated. The effects of processing parameters such as laser power, scan rate, scan line spacing, thickness of layer, scanning geometry and sintering atmosphere were studied. A specific energy input ( ψ ) was defined using the "energy conservation" rule to explore the effects of the processing condition on the density and the attendant microstructure of laser sintered iron. It was found that the sintered density increased sharply with increasing the specific energy input until a critical energy input had been reached ( ψ ∼0.2 kJ mm-3). The microstructure consists... 

The densification response of aluminum powder reinforced with 5 vol.% nanometric alumina particles (35 nm) during uniaxial compaction in a rigid die was studied. The composite powder was prepared by blending and mechanical milling procedures. To determine the effect of the reinforcement nanoparticles on the compressibility of aluminum powder, monolithic Al powder, i.e. without the addition of alumina, was also examined. It was shown that at the early stage of compaction when the rearrangement of particles is the dominant mechanism of the densification, disintegration of the nanoparticle clusters and agglomerates under the applied load contributes in the densification of the composite powder... 

Warm compaction is a cost saving and effective method for obtaining high performance powder metallurgy (PM) parts. This chapter presents the principles of warm compaction and technical aspects of the process. The green and sintered properties of warm compacted parts are discussed and compared with conventionally (cold) produced compacts. The applications of the process for ferrous and non-ferrous PM parts are presented and future trends are outlined  

Laser sintering of Fe-C-Cu steel powder for rapid manufacturing of sintered components for functional testing was studied. The effects of C and Cu addition on the densification and the attendant microstructural features were investigated. The influence of iron particle size on the sintering kinetics was also examined. It is shown that the alloying elements significantly improve the densification rate when fine iron particles and high laser intensity are used. The mechanism of particle bonding and the effect of the alloying elements are presented. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved  

The densification and microstructural evolution during co-sintering of M2 tool steel/316L stainless steel composite layers with and without boron addition was studied. A pressureless sintering method in conjunction with a powder layering technique was used to fabricate the stepwise graded composite layers. Isothermal and non-isothermal sintering response of the individual and composite layers was examined and the microstructural features of the bonding zone were studied. Shear strength and microhardness of the bonding zone were also measured. It was shown that an enhanced densification is obtained in the composite layers due to (i) sintering shrinkage incompatibility between two steels, (ii)... 

In the present work, the densification and microstructure of M2 high speed steel powder processed by direct laser sintering method was studied. Test specimens were produced using a 200 W continuous wave CO2 laser beam at different scan rates ranging from 50 to 175 mm s-1. The building process was performed under argon and nitrogen atmospheres in order to evaluate the role of sintering atmosphere. It was found that the sintered density strongly depends on the laser scan rate and thus on the duration time of the laser beam on the surface of the powder particles. Generally, with a decrease in the scan rate higher densification was obtained. However, formation of large cracks and delamination of... 

In performance-based geotechnical earthquake engineering, the required degree and spatial extent of ground densification for mitigation of liquefaction beneath a structure should be determined based on the acceptable levels of performance of foundation. Currently, there is no solution for evaluation of the amount of settlement and tilt of footings constructed on a densified ground which is surrounded by a liquefiable soil. This implies the need for numerical procedures for simulation of seismic behavior of shallow foundations supported on both liquefiable and densified subsoil. In this paper, the dynamic response of shallow foundations on a densified ground is studied using a 3D fully... 

Manufacturing of complex-shaped bimetals utilizing two-color powder injection molding (2C-PIM) and three-dimensional printing (3DP) processes, which basically involve sintering of a powder/binder mixture, has been attracted a great interest. This article addresses sintering of biocompatible Co-Cr-Mo alloy for manufacturing stepwise porosity-graded composite structures. Such composite structures provide strength at the core and a porous layer for the tissue growth. To evaluate the process, two grades of gas atomized Co-Cr-Mo powder with an average particle size of 19 and 63 μm were used. Isothermal and non-isothermal sintering behavior of the loose powders under hydrogen and argon... 

An instrumented die was used to investigate the behaviour of metal powders during cold (ambient temperature) and warm (up to 140°C) compaction. This instrument enables simultaneous measurement of density, die wall friction coefficient, the triaxial stresses acting on the powder during the course of compaction and ejection pressure. Commercial iron, titanium, aluminium, 316L stainless steel (SS) and aluminium-silicon powders were employed for investigation. The results demonstrated the advantages of powder preheating on the compaction behaviour of metal powders concerning green density, dimensional changes, frictional behaviour, ejection characteristics and compactibiiity. However, the... 

Ta0.8Hf0.2C ceramic has the highest melting point among the known materials (4000°C). Spark plasma sintering is a new route for consolidation of materials, specially ultra high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), which are difficult to be sintered at temperatures lower than 2000°C.The purpose of this study is to consolidate Ta0.8Hf0.2C by spark plasma sintering at low temperature using MoSi2 and TaSi2 as sintering aid. In this regard, effect of different amounts of sintering aids and carbides ratio on densification behavior and mechanical properties of Ta1-xHfxC were investigated.Fully consolidation of Ta0.8Hf0.2C was achieved in presence of 12vol.% sintering aid after sintering at 1650°C for 5min... 

Data traffic is increasing in recent years and small cell densification is a promising solution for handling the consequences of this growth. However, it faces with backhual' constraint which limits its efficiency. Caching the popular files near to the small base stations (SBSs) is an effective technique which decreases usage of backhual links. In this paper, we model the network by a graph and propose a new popular files' placement based on graph coloring for which different powerful solutions and algorithms have been presented in the literature. In this respect, we propose an algorithm to fill the caches of SBSs with the popular files and show the efficiency of our proposed algorithm... 

The compressibility behavior of Al-AlN nanostructured composite powder with different amount of reinforcement content was studied. The composite powder was synthesized by blending and high-energy milling process for 25 h. Williamson-Hall method was applied to determine the crystallite size after milling process. To investigate the role of reinforcement particles in consolidation of composite powders, monolithic aluminum powder was examined. Samples were made at different pressures and relationships were established between the compaction pressure and the density of the compacts. The modified Heckel equation was used to assume the pressure effect on yield strength and then was compared with... 

This work presents the effect of co-sintering on the densification and microstructural evolution in the two-layer stepwise graded composite of INCONEL 718 and INCONEL 625 superalloys. A pressureless co-sintering method in conjunction with a powder layering technique was used. The sintering was carried out in solid state and liquid phase in temperature ranging from 1260 °C through 1300 °C for 60 minutes in a low pressure of an argon atmosphere. Nonisothermal sintering behavior was also examined by dilatometric analysis. Similarly, the sintering response of the individual layers was characterized. The results reveal an enhanced densification rate during co-sintering of the composite layers.... 

In the present work, the densification and microstructural evolution during direct laser sintering of metal powders were studied. Various ferrous powders including Fe, Fe-C, Fe-Cu, Fe-C-Cu-P, 316L stainless steel, and M2 high-speed steel were used. The empirical sintering rate data was related to the energy input of the laser beam according to the first order kinetics equation to establish a simple sintering model. The equation calculates the densification of metal powders during direct laser sintering process as a function of operating parameters including laser power, scan rate, layer thickness and scan line spacing. It was found that when melting/solidification approach is the mechanism... 

This paper presents the densification and microstructure of bilayer structures made from 316L and 17-4PH stainless steels powders during sintering. The requirements for such objects could be magnetic properties at one area of the part and non-magnetic properties at another area of the object. A pressureless solid state sintering method in conjunction with a powder layering technique was used. The sintering was carried out at temperatures ranging from 1100 to 1340 °C for 120 min in hydrogen and vacuum atmospheres. Non-isothermal sintering behavior was also examined by dilatometric analysis. It was found that the strain rate of 17-4PH stainless steel powder is higher than that of 316L during... 

In the present work, the role of graphite addition and sintering atmosphere on the laser sintering of M2 high-speed steel (HSS) powder was studied. The test specimens were produced using a continuous wave CO2 laser beam at power of 200 W and at varying scan rate ranges from 50 to 175 mm s-1 under nitrogen and argon atmospheres. It was found that laser scan rate and sintering atmosphere strongly influence the densification of M2 HSS powder. Opposite to the conventional sintering that the sinterability of HSS is improved by graphite addition, the result of this work demonstrated that graphite addition decreases the sintered density of M2 HSS at relatively low laser scan rates, i.e. <100 mm... 

Nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite (nHA) of 50 nm average diameter and length to diameter ratio of >3 was synthesized by biomimetic method. Non-isothermal sintering improved densification behavior and mechanical properties of apatite to 0.88 maximum fractional density, 70MPa bending strength, 148MPa compressive strength and 2.53GPa microhardness at sintering temperature of 1250°C. Higher sintering temperatures resulted in the decomposition of the apatite and in-situ biphasic calcium phosphate HAP/TCP formation. This process lowered apatite densification and weakened mechanical properties of the sintered specimen. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission... 

This article reports experimental results on laser sintering of A356 aluminum alloy and A356/SiC composite powders. Effects of scan rate, sintering atmosphere, hatch spacing, and SiC volume fraction (up to 20%), and particle size (7 and 17 μm) on the densification were studied. The phase formation and microstructural development were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Laser sintering under argon atmosphere exhibited higher densification compared to nitrogen. A faster sintering kinetics was observed as the scan rate decreased. Except at a low SiC content (5 vol%), the composite powders exhibited...