| Abstract | In powder metallurgy, the usage of an admixed lubricant to aid the compaction and to ease the ejection of the green parts is most of the time unavoidable. Over the past years, many lubricant formulations which were either developed by metal powder producers or independent lubricant manufacturers were introduced to the market. All the while, some common powder metallurgy lubricants are still widely used in the industry, mostly due to the fact that their behaviour is well known and are also cost competitive.
Nevertheless, the actual offering of high performance lubricants offers many advantages over the
traditional lubricants. This paper offers a review of the major advantages of high performance lubricants
over traditional formulations.
The lubricants were evaluated in FC-0208 and FD-0208 steel powder compositions. Apparent density,
flow rate, compressibility, ejection behaviour, surface finish and sintered properties were evaluated. It is
demonstrated that high performance lubricants, despite their slightly higher cost compared to
conventional lubricants, can offer net benefits to parts manufacturers. The lubricants were tested at equal
concentrations (0.7% w/w) in order to offer a fair comparison and ease the process of selecting a given
lubricant when designing new parts.
Although great care was taken to insure all lubricants were tested equally, it is understood that some
lubricants may perform better than described herein in other compaction conditions or with different
powder formulations. |
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