Abstract
A stress-free sintering approach for iron aluminide powder-metallurgy (P/M) products by employing the pre-formed Fe 2 Al 5 particles as one of starting materials is demonstrated in the present study. The processes of fabricating Fe 2 Al 5 particles and mixing them with Fe powder, then sintering to the final Fe 3 Al products have been described in this work. A great amount of pores, brittle and easily broken characteristics with a relatively low melting temperature were observed in the pre-formed Fe 2 Al 5 material. The present process exhibits the advantage of circumventing the swelling and expansion problems which are always observed in a common stress-free sintering process of an elemental Fe-Al mixture compact. The tensile properties and microstructures of various sintered Fe 3 Al specimens were investigated and compared. The density and room temperature tensile elongation could reach 96 and 4.8% in the thermal-mechanical treated Fe 3 Al P/M specimens, respectively. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.