Turning and drilling of parts made from sinter hardenable steel powders

Abstract

The constant demand for improved mechanical properties and lower production costs of PM parts has lead to the development of sinter hardenable steel powders. These powders produce fully martensitic microstructures by appropriately controlling the cooling rate during the sintering operation. Thus, the heat treatment operation (oil quenching) that would generally be required to obtain hardened parts can be eliminated. However, machining of the relatively hard sinter hardened parts is difficult.It then becomes critical to optimise the tool selection and the machining conditions, such as surface speed and feed. This paper presents guidelines for the turning and drilling of parts made with sinter hardenable powders, as well as a discussion on the effect of manganese sulphide particles and chip formation during turning.