The influence of Iron and Aluminium Powder Pressing on the Course of Shrinkage and Properties of the Fe40Al Phase Obtained by Reaction Sintering

The effect of the compaction rate on the structure, microstructure and properties of Fe-Al sinters obtained during the SHS reaction is presented in this paper. It was found that increasing the uniaxial pressing pressure led to the increase of the contact area between iron and aluminium particles, which improved the conduction and lowered heat losses during the self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) reaction and thus result with a sintered material with an improved phase homogeneity. On the other hand, an increase in the pressing pressure causes air be trapped in the pores and later on reacts with iron and aluminium to form oxides. In this work, the shrinkage course was analysed at six different pressing pressures: 50, 100, 150, 200, 300 and 400 MPa. The green compacts were then subjected to the PAIS process (pressure-assisted induction sintering) at a temperature of 1000°C under a load of 100 kN for 5 min. Such prepared samples were subjected to density, porosity, and microhardness (HV0.1) measurements. X-ray diffraction phase analysis and SEM observations were performed together with EDS chemical composition measurements. For studied chemical composition of the samples and sample geometry, 200 MPa compacting pressure was found to be optimal in order to obtain the best sample homogeneity.