Liquid Phase Sintering of Highly Alloyed Stainless Steel

Liquid phase sintering of stainless steel is usually applied to improve corrosion resistance by obtaining a material without an open pore system. The dense structure normally also give a higher strength when compared to conventional sintered steel. Liquid phase sintrering based on addition of boride to AISI 316L type steels have previously been studied, but were found to be sensitive to intergranular corrosion due to formation of intermetallic phases rich in chromium and molybdenum.

In order to improve this system further, new investigations have focused on the use of higher alloyed stainless steel as base material. The stainless base powders were added different amounts and types of boride and sintered in hydrogen at different temperatures and times in a laboratory furnace. During sintering the outlet gas was analyzed and subsequently related to the obtained microstructure.

Thermodynamic calculations, made by use of the computer programme Thermo-Calc, were also correlated with the observed microstructure. Corrosion measurements by electrochemical techniques show no signs of intergranular corrosion in contrast to the case of AISI 316L based steel. Furthermore most of the material showed excellent corosion resistance in the neutral salt spray by withstanding more than 1500 hours exposure without any corrosion, either on as-sintered surfaces or worked samples.