FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

NANO MATERIAL LABORATORY
SEMESTER JAN 2015

POWDER METALLURGY

GROUP NO: 7

NO

NAME

ID NO.

GERARD SUE WEI PING

17298

AFIQ MUIZZUDDEEN B ALIAS

14891

ALAN ARULANDOM ALEXANDER

16036

ABSTRACT

This report presents the process of powder metallurgy in producing a metal matrix composite. It
was assigned that Group 7 to work with metallurgy of a ratio 97% powder, 2% boric acid and
1% carbon, with the aim to study the microstructure of the final product. The process of
producing the specimen however is conducted by compacting and sintering the initial weighed
powder. The result of both optical microscopy shows that the small percentage of carbon and the
porosity in the structure only can be seen under the 100x magnification, which indicates a fine
mixing composition, while a lower hardness value will result in a bigger diameter impact in the
micro hardness test.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background of Study
Powder metallurgy technique has been used in the industry since the 1950s. Since then, this
technique has emerged as one of the most common techniques to produce a metal matrix
composite (MMC), capable to manufacture materials of special properties, with minimal
machining.
Powder metallurgy involves the process of blending fine powdered materials, pressing them
into a desired shape or form (compacting), and then heating the compressed material in a
controlled atmosphere to bond the material (sintering). The general process of powder
metallurgy will consider four basic steps: powder manufacture, powder blending,
compacting, and sintering. Compacting is generally performed at room temperature, and the
elevated-temperature process of sintering is usually conducted at atmospheric pressure.
Optional secondary processing often follows to obtain special properties or enhanced
precision.
The use of powder metal technology bypasses the need to manufacture the resulting products
by metal removal processes, thereby reducing costs. Besides, the use of powder metallurgy
may represent high volume fractions of particulate, which contributes to better product
properties.
1.1 Objectives
The objectives of this experiment are as shown below:
1. To demonstrate the process of powder metallurgy by compacting copper, carbon and
wax powders in a die enclosure.
2. To fabricate specimen of copper-carbon-wax base powder (metal matrix composite)
using power metallurgy process.
3. To study microstructure using optical microscopy and hardness using micro hardness
testing machine.

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Powder Metallurgy

Powder metallurgy is a metal-working process used to be fabricate parts of simple or complex
shape from a wide variety of metal and alloys in the forms of powder. The process involved the
shaping of powder and subsequently bonding through heat treatments or mechanical working. A
powder is a finely divided solid; the size is smaller than 1mm (0.04) in. The powder metallurgy
process has included of pressing, and sintering.
2.1.1 Sample Preparation
It was assigned that Group 7 to work with metallurgy of a ratio 97% powder, 2% boric acid and
1% carbon. Thus, a total of 3 grams of specimen; 2.91 grams copper, 0.06 grams boric acid and
0.03 gram carbon was weighed using a digital weight balance. Figure 1 shows the weighing
process.

Figure 1: Weighing of Specimen

2.1.2 Mixing
The process of mixing is as shown below:
a) Powders are put in ball mill to obtain uniform mixing.
b) It is advised that mixing is conducted in an inert atmosphere to avoid explosion/ingestion.
2.1.3 Compaction
In this experiment, a powder charge 1 - 2 grams is used. Two pallet components are made by
compacting of the metal powder at two different punch-loads. The powder was lubricated
thoroughly by mixing in the solid lubricant to reduce die wall friction and to assist ejection of the
compact die. The die, in the form of pallet container is made of hardened steel.
The process of compaction is as shown below:
a) Setup the test equipment. Made sure the bottom position is the punch.
b) Carefully weight 2-3 gram of the cooper with the sensitive weighting scale.
c) Pour the powder into the die cavity and level it off to obtain a uniform distribution.
d) Insert the top punch and apply the punch load steadily until 3000 N and place it for 5
minutes.
e) Removed the specimen carefully from the die after punch and weighting again with the
sensitive weighting scale.
f) All the weight data has recorded.
2.1.4 Sintering
The process of sintering is as shown below:
a) Sintering is conducted in a furnace.
b) It is advised that sintering is to be done at 2/3 melting temperature of copper, to avoid
structure collapse.
c) Hence sintering is conducted at a temperature of roughly 723.3oC, with 2/3 of the melting
temperature of copper (1085 oC).

d) The procedure continues with sintering process, by placed it under the heat lab oven.
e) First step is to remove the oxygen and replace with inert gas by perching process which insert
the argon gas into the lab oven and remove the oxygen for 30 minute and this process is
carried out on the room temperature.
f) After 30 minutes, the temperature of the lab oven had been set increase steadily from 30c to
750c for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
2.2 Optical Microscopy
Optical microscope is a process that used to see the micro-structure for the specimen. The
process of optical microscope include of molding with plastic, grinding, polishing and
microscopic on the surface of the structure. The process is as shown below:
a) Set up the experiment equipment. Carefully placed in the specimen into the molding
machine.
b) Pour the molding powder into the die cavity and pressing it with the top cover and start the
set up for 3 minutes.
c) After 3 minutes, removed the specimen from automated molding machine and clean the
specimen with ethanol and nitric acid.
d) Next step, grinding the surface with smaller to bigger grinding paper number and after that
polish the final product.
e) Applied electro microscopic to see the micro-structure on the surface of the polish specimen
surface and later capture the micro structure of the specimen with the same equipment.

Figure 2: Molded Specimen

2.3 Micro Hardness Test
The process is as shown below:
a) Setup the experiment equipment. Place the specimen in the micro hardness test equipment.
b) Set the point that carried the impact on the surface of specimen and the hardness values for
the impact in HV.
c) Set the Dwell time for 15 sec and after that start the impact by pressing start.
d) Then, used the same equipment to determine the dent in m made by the impact.
e) Step 1-4 is repeated for 4 times and all the data then is obtained and recorded.

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS & DISCUSSION

3.1 Compaction
The result of the compacted specimen is as shown in Table 1 below:
Table 1: Data of Specimen after Compaction
Description

Remarks

Thickness

3.79 mm

Diameter

13.00 mm

Weight

2.981 g

3.2 Optical Microscope

Figure 3: Optical Microscopic Structure for Copper-Carbon Composition

The result obtained from the optical microscope about the microstructure of the specimen is
shown in the Figure 3 above. As can be seen from Figure 3, it had been separated into 4 columns
6

because that was the capture by different size lens of the magnifying optical scope start from the
first row left to right, and second row left to right are taken from (25x, 50x, 100x, and 125x)
respectively. As observed from the microstructure difference, the small percentage of carbon and
the porosity in the structure only can be seen under the magnifying 100x from the optical
microscopic lens. Thus the result from the optical microscope shows that the powder metallurgy
methods is a very fine mixing composition and it can be only seen by under 100x of magnifying
on the surface of the specimen.

3.3 Micro Hardness test

Table 2: Micro Hardness Test Result

No. Hardness Value (HV)

D1 (m)

D2 (m)

52.8

59.26

59.26

70.8

51.15

51.15

46.2

63.34

63.34

44.6

64.86

64.08

The result of the micro hardness test result had been recorded and as shown above in Table 2.
The values show that the dent values are higher when the hardness values are lower under a
constant of 15 seconds impact time and under the same test equipment. This show that the
hardness values that give impact also effects the result changes.

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION

Prior to the results obtained, the powder metallurgy process was demonstrated. The specimen
weighing 3 grams was prepared using by compacting the mixture with ratio 97% copper powder,
2% boric acid and 1% carbon powder. The optical microscopy image obtained, and the
microstructure of the specimen was observed. Some porosity and carbon is visible under the
microscope under 100x magnification which indicate fine mixing composition. From result of
micro hardness test obtained, it shows the composite has average hardness value (HV) 53.6.