抄録
The expectation has been wide-spread that MIM keeps a good possibility of being an advanced powder processing technique. So far various kinds of studies have been reported for optimization of MIM process, however, there still remain several subjects to be discussed. Especially, it is the most important issue to control the amount of elements in the final products such as the carbon and oxygen. Therefore we have made a basical research about the behavior of those elements in SUS304L steels during debinding and sintering process. In this study, by varying the sintering atmosphere (vacuum pressure) and debinding temperature, we analyzed the carbon and oxygen contents in each step of heat treatment, and successfully made clear the guidlines of ruling reaction as follows;
1)In the vacuum sintering process for SUS304L steels, the removal of carbon and oxygen from the compacts progresses under the dominant reaction below;
2C(residual carbon)+O2(in furnace and gained as oxides) → 2CO↑
2)The carbon and metal oxidation are enhanced over about 1200K. As the oxygen pressure is higher, metal oxidation becomes more dominant.
3)During the vacuum sintering, the decrease of carbon content down to approximately 0.05mass% accelerates metal oxidation remarkedly.
