Investigation of powder size effects on sintering of powder injection moulded 17-4PH stainless steel

Densification behaviours of 17-4PH stainless steel powders (SUS17-4PH) of three different particle sizes during the sintering were investigated. The samples with different mean particle sizes of 3.17, 4.22 and 8.30 mu m were prepared through powder-binder mixing, injection moulding, and solvent and thermal debindings. The in situ shrinkage data measured by dilatometry tests were treated to analyse the densification behaviour of each sample. In order to characterise the densification behaviour with a minimum set of experiments, the master sintering curve (MSC), as well-known and straight-forward approach, was employed. After constructing the MSCs for powders of different particle sizes, the effects of particle size on the densification were analysed in many respects including shrinkage, strain rate, apparent activation energy, and work of sintering.