STUDY OF PLASMA SINTERING VARIABLES FOR AUSTENITIC STAINLESS STEEL
Plasma Sintering, AISI M2, High speed Steel
Plasma assisted sintering is the procedure in which the compacted powder is subjected to a luminescent discharge cloud of ionized gas which, when interacting with the surface of the part, allows heating and densification of the particulates. Plasma sintering methods can produce materials with high degrees of performance under highly reductive atmospheres, fine temperature control and reduced processing time when compared to conventional sintering methods. It is proposed to analyze the effects of plasma sintering on austenitic stainless steel AISI 316L, evaluating the effects of changing treatment parameters, in order to determine the ones that best suit the production of sintering with good densification. The study of the treatment parameters was initiated with the sintering of compacted samples at 700MPa, sintered under argon atmosphere, with a 30 minute isotherm time at an apparent temperature of 730 ° C. In this step, sintering was performed using planar hollow cathode and cylindrical hollow cathode. The samples were evaluated for the relative percentage of porosity, pore geometry and rate of heating provided by the cathode. It was observed that sintered samples with cylindrical hollow cathode showed reduced porosity with a high degree of circularity. Then, using cylindrical hollow cathode, under the same sintering parameters, the effects of the compression pressure variation in the samples were evaluated, using pressures of 555MPa, 655MPa, 700MPa, 750MPa and 800MPa. The pore geometry and distribution, grain size, crystal structure, apparent hardness and microhardness of the samples were studied in the sintered samples. Sintered samples with compaction pressures of 750MPa and 800MPa showed the best results. Samples compacted at 800MPa were sintered at rates of 9.17 ° C