MODELING OF HOT COMPACTION OF METAL-POWDER BY HOMOGENIZATION

An homogenization technique is presented and applied to the modelling of the compaction of metal powders at high temperatures. Experiments performed on stainless steel powder suggest that the densification rate during hot isostatic pressing varies as the external pressure to the power of n, where n is the exponent of the creep law of the constituent metal. The homogenization process applied to a porous body made up of non-linearly creeping particles permits rigorous proof of this result. More generally it shows that the power-law structure of the local description is preserved at the macroscopic level.