Abstract
The metal injection molding process was applied to produce the Ti-6Al-4V alloy compacts using Ti and 3 types of Al-40V alloy powders. The first Al-40V alloy powder is a fine irregular powder, the second one is a coarse irregular powder, and the third one is a spherical powder obtained by gas atomization which particle size is same as the coarse irregular powder. The effect of particle size or shape of Al-40V alloy powder and sintering conditions on the relative density, mechanical properties and oxygen content of the sintered compacts were mainly investigated.
The sintered compacts using fine irregular Al-40V alloy powder showed highest density, the compacts using coarse irregular Al-40V alloy powder showed slightly higher density than the compacts using spherical atomized Al-40V alloy powder. This seemed to be due to the enhancement of sintering by using fine particle sizes or irregular particle shape of Al-40V alloy powder. The tensile strength of sintered compacts using fine irregular Al-40V alloy powders was about 70MPa higher than the compacts using other 2 types of Al-40V alloy powders. This was mainly affected by oxygen content of the sintered compacts derived from fine Al-40V alloy powder which had originally high oxygen content.
