Experimental investigation on workability and strain hardening behaviour of Fe–C–Mn sintered composites with different percentage of carbon and manganese content

An experimental investigation on the workability and strain hardening behaviour of iron–carbon–manganese (Fe–C–0.50Mn) Powder metallurgy (P/M) steel composite sintered preforms under triaxial stress state has been carried out. Cold upset forming of the above composite preforms was conducted with variation in carbon content (0.10% and 0.25%) and manganese content (0.50% and 1.05%) with an aspect ratio 0.45. The powders were collected on weight basis and then gradually compacted up to 1.2 GPa pressure and then sintered at 950 ± 5 °C to form composite preforms. Sintered preforms were cold deformed with uniform incremental loading. The effect of different percentage of carbon and manganese on the iron-based P/M composite was investigated thoroughly in the cold deformation experiment. Comparison between the effect of carbon and manganese on the workability and strain hardening behaviour of the composites was analysed and presented. The analysis of the experimental results has shown that the P/M steel which contains 0.10% carbon and 0.50% manganese exhibited greater values of stresses, initial relative density, strain hardening and workability parameters.