Investigation of effect of sintering parameters to mechanical properties at medium and low frequency sintering of powder metal parts

Sintering is one of the most important steps of the production of powder metal parts. Sintering is a heat treatment which has significant energy and time consumption and it brings into desired mechanical property values of the pressed metal powder according to usage areas. In recent years, reducing costs by reducing time and energy has become an important goal in the production process. According to this object, alternative methods of conventional sintering are investigated and used. In the thesis, induction sintering method which has low energy and time consumption was investigated. The advantages and disadvantages of this method was investigated in detail and substitutability to conventional sintering was researched. In the study, pure iron powder; 0.5 % graphite included iron powder and % 3 Cu, % 0.5 graphite included iron powder (by weight) was used. Effect of sintering method, sintering duration, sintering temperature and pre-sintering on mechanical properties and microstructure was investigated. In order to understand the effect of induction sintering, conventional sintering was applied to the samples and micro structural and mechanical properties of samples were compared. As the result of the studies, it was seen that, better mechanical property values were obtained at the same sintering duration and temperature compared to the conventional sintering. In the study, firstly test samples which has different powder compositions were produced for mechanical testing by induction and conventional sintering methods, with different sintering parameters. In the following sections, the pressed powder metal parts which were different shapes and sizes were produced successfully with induction sintering.