Hot Forging and Hot Pressing of AlSi Powder Compared to Conventional Powder Metallurgy Route

Sayed Moustafa, Walid Daoush, Ahmed Ibrahim, Erich Neubaur

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DOI: 10.4236/msa.2011.28152                

Abstract

Aluminum silicon alloy of composition (Al-25%Si-3%Ni-1%Fe-2%Cu) was atomized using water atomization. The powders were cold compacted in a die to produce green cylinder compacts. Four consolidation processes were applied, namely; conventional sintering at 500℃, sintering followed by hot forging to obtain pistons, one step hot forging into pistons, and hot pressing. The microstructure of the sintered specimens showed inter-granular pores and oxide layers on particle interfaces of 84% relative density. When the sintered specimens were hot forged, both the inter-granular pores and oxide layers on particle interfaces almost disappeared and the relative densities increased up to about 95%. The same microstructure is also obtained for the one step forged specimens, but the relative densities increased to about 97%. However, the hot pressing specimens showed the presence of oxide layers on particle surfaces as well as few isolated pores. The relative density of the hot pressed specimens was about 90%. Hardness and ultimate compression strength were measured. It is noted that the strongest bulk materials are those made by hot forging, followed by those made by hot pressing and the weakest bulk materials are those made by conventional sintering.

Keywords

Aluminum-Silicon Alloy, Powder Metallurgy, Hot Forging, Hot Pressing, Hardness, Compression Test

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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