The effects of powder size and sintering temperature on the microstructure and properties of modified MA6000 alloy produced by spark plasma sintering

ABSTRACT

The present study investigates the properties and microstructure evolution of MA 6000, a nickel-based alloy produced by mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering (SPS), a powder processing technique in metallurgy. This study aims to explore the potential of MA 6000 as a high-temperature material for industrial applications. Modified MA 6000 samples of different powder sizes were sintered in a high-vacuum environment at temperatures ranging from 800 to 1100°C. At 800°C, the cohesion between powder particles was not significant, resulting in low-density samples. However, at 1000°C, the samples consisted of many fully sintered regions related to finer powder particles, while no specific morphology was observed at 1050°C. The image quality and inverse pole figure (IQ-IPF) map indicated that the grains were distributed randomly in all sintered samples, and the average distribution of grain size of samples sintered at 1050°C was larger than that of those sintered at 1000°C.

KEYWORDS:

• MA6000
• powder
• spark plasma sintering
• nickel-based alloy
• high-temperature strength

Acknowledgment

This study is based upon work supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE, Korea) under the Industrial Technology Innovation Program. No. 20017647, ‘Development of oxide dispersion strengthened superalloy materials and manufacturing technology for hypersonic engines’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dinh Van Cong

Dinh Van Cong, Ph.D. course Student, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ulsan.

Dong-Wan Lee

Dong-Wan Lee, Ph.D. course Student, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ulsan.

Su-Gwan Lee

Su-Gwan Lee, Mater course Student, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ulsan.

Jin-Woo Kim

Jin-Woo Kim, Researcher, Research Laboratories, DaiShinKangup Co., Ltd.

Hwi-Jun Kim

Hwi-Jun Kim, Ph.D., Principle Researcher, Liquid Processing & Casting Technology R&D Division, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology.

Joong-Gyeong Lim

Joong-Gyeong Lim, Principle Researcher, Research Laboratories, DaiShinKangup Co., Ltd.

Tae-Shik Yoon

Tae-Shik Yoon, Ph.D., Principle Researcher, Research Laboratories, DaiShinKangup Co., Ltd.

Jin-Chun Kim

Jin-Chun Kim, Ph.D., Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ulsan.