Effect of Sintering Temperature on Structure and Properties of Powder Metallurgy Fe-Cu-C Alloy under Industrial Condition

Fe-Cu-C alloy was prepared by powder metallurgy technology under practical industrial condition, and the effect of sintering temperature (1 060-1 160℃) on density, microstructure, phase composition and mechanical properties of the alloy was studied. The results show that with the increase of sintering temperature, the density of the alloy increased first and then decreased, and reached the maximum value of 7.02 g·cm^-3 at 1 140℃. With the increase of sintering temperature, the spherification degree of particles in structure of the alloy increased, and the mount and size of pores both decreased; the microstructure tended to be stable; the diffraction peak of copper phase disappeared, while the Fe₄Cu₃ phase appeared. The tensile strength and hardness had the same trend with sintering temperature as that of density, and both reached the maximum values of 460 MPa and 185 HRB at 1 140℃, respectively; all tensile fractures were mainly characterized by brittle fracture. The mechanical property indexes of the prepared alloy indexes industrial condition were almost the same with those under laboratory condition.