2012 Volume 61 Issue 4 Pages 365-370
The objective of this study is to prepare a powder sintered body, inside which there are macroscopic hollow connected to the outer surface through open pores, and to obtain aromatic sintered metal by impregnating this structure with an aromatic agent. The macroscopic hollow was fabricated using an infiltration method. Specifically, a pre-formed copper powder compact was buried in iron powder and compacted, and the obtained compact was sintered under vacuum at 1150°C for 30min. The weight of copper powder was adjusted so that 20% of the open pore volume in the iron powder compact remained. When the temperature of the sintering process reached the melting point of copper, the copper infiltrated into these pores. Consequently, regions that had been occupied by the copper powder compact became macroscopic hollow, and part of the pores remained open. When an aromatic agent was allowed to impregnate the hollow through the open pores, the hollow became reservoirs for the aromatic agent and weight of the agent increased 1.2 times compared with the non-infiltrated compact. Moreover, mechanical strength of iron powder compact by copper infiltration increased more than 3 times compared with the non-infiltrated compact.
