The Effect of Microwave Sintering Time to PM Aluminum Alloys

Microwave sintering is new sintering technology method to produce Al alloys. The advantages of this method because of very short sintering time and less production cost compare to conventional sintering. However, the main problems in microwave sintering are required to be controlled sintering time due to rapid sintering mechanism. Therefore the effect of microwave sintering time to PM Aluminium will be studied. The compacted and sintered aluminium powder is placed in a microwave oven at a different period of 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes and 20 minutes. Compression of 150 MPa is applied on aluminium powder to form pellets. Palette is shaped to 1cm in diameter and weighs 1g. SiC is placed together with aluminium samples in the microwave for the purpose of absorbing electromagnetic energy and is converted to heat. Results of different period sintering of aluminium pallet production altered physical properties of each sample. For a rapid sintering time, aluminium pallet does not show any binding reaction between powder particles. Whereas, for long microwave sintering period, solid particles phase change into solid-liquid phase caused by the movement and the formation of bonds between particles. Hence, this will be affecting the mechanical properties of the sample material.