Abstract
The spark sintering technique was utilized to produce high performance compacts consisting of (1) metal, W, Ti; (2) carbides, WC, Cr3C2; (3) oxide, Al2O3; or (4) sulfide, WS2; using their powders which were electroless Ni or Sn plated as their surface treatment. The sintered compacts produced from the electroless plated powders showed excellent mechanical and oxidation properties which were evaluated by Charpy impact, tensile, hardness, friction and high temperature oxidation tests, compared with compacts produced by elemental powder blending method. As the alloying or binder element, Ni or Sn was plated uniformly on the surfaces of some powders, which resulted in the successful achievements as follows: (1) the excellent sinterability, high densification rate and enough promotion of sintering, by production of the path for electrical current flow, uniform deformation in the homogeneously distributed soft binder phase and enough diffusion between binder and mother elements, and (2) the excellent mechanical and oxidation properties by the microstructural control such as homogeneous structure and composition through compacts under microalloying condition.
