Metallurgical Engineering

Metallurgical Engineering

Investigation on Microstructural and Compression Properties of Fe-0.5wt. %C-2wt. %Cu Foams Manufactured Through Powder Metallurgy

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Hamid Sazegaran 1
Masoud Pour 2
Milad Hojati 3
1 Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Quchan University of Advanced Technology
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Quchan University of Advanced Technology
3 Production Management of Mashhad Powder Metallurgy Company
10.22076/me.2017.45414.1079
Abstract
In this study, the spherical urea granulates as space holders were applied to manufacturing the steel foams by powder metallurgy technique. In this process, the urea granulates were coated by mixture of iron, cupper, and carbon powders. After compacting the coated granulates up to 200 MPa through a hydraulic press in a metallic mold, the sintering process was done at 1120 ˚C in an especial powder metallurgy furnace. The performed studies on the manufactured specimens were included the measurement of the porosity fraction, microstructural evaluations by optical and scanning electron microscopies, and investigation of compression properties. The average of the porosity fraction of manufactured specimens was measured 74.5 percent. The optical microscopic evaluations shown that the cells are exactly manufactured according to granulate geometry. In addition, no fracture was observed in the cell walls and hence, no fracture was occurred in the urea granulates in compacting process. The SEM images shown that the all of cells walls connected to each other and sets of open and close cells were produced. In the compression stress vs. strain curves of manufactured steel foams, a long plateau region was observed. The average of stress in the plateau region, maximum compression stress, and absorbed energy were 15 MPa, 25 MPa, and 14 Nm, respectively.
Keywords
Steel foam
urea granules
Porosity fraction
Microstructure
Compression behavior
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  • Receive Date 12 July 2016
  • Revise Date 22 September 2016
  • Accept Date 22 September 2016