A Newly Developed Easily Sinterable Low-Alloy Steel Powder

The work presents a possibility of fabrication of inexpensive iron-based powders intended to form the matrix in sintered diamond-impregnated tool components. In this study, a finely dispersed, pre-alloyed steel powder, containing over 95 wt.% Fe, has been designed and fabricated by means of a proprietary process developed at AGH-University of Science & Technology. It has been shown that the experimental powder can be consolidated to a closed porosity condition (>95% theoretical density) by pressure-less sintering at a temperature below 900 °C. The as-consolidated material is characterized by an excellent combination of hardness (~250 HV) and mechanical strength (>1200 MPa in 3-point bending) that meets the diamond tooling requirements. Its properties can be modified to some extent by varying the cold forming pressure and sintering temperature.