Modeling of the metal powder compaction process using the cap model. Part I. Experimental material characterization and validation

In order to produce crack free metal powder compacts that respect both the dimensional tolerances and the mechanical strength requirements, both tooling design and compaction sequence have to be adequately determined. The finite element method, through the use of an appropriate constitutive model of the powder medium, has recently been used as an efficient design tool. The accuracy of this method highly depends on the faithfulness of the constitutive model and the quality of the material parameter set. Furthermore, in order for the simulation results to be reliable, they should be experimentally validated on real parts featuring density variations. Hence, the main concerns of this paper are the development of a standard calibration procedure for the cap material model as well as the development of a reliable technique for the experimental validation of the powder compaction simulation results. The developed calibration procedure, applied for the case of 316L stainless steel powders, is based on a series of isostatic, triaxial and uniaxial compaction tests as well as resonant frequency tests. In addition, a sensitivity study was performed in order to determine the relative importance of each factor and basic simulations served to validate the parameter set extraction procedure. On the other hand, a local density measurement technique was developed for the experimental validation of the model results. This technique is based on correlation with Vickers macro-hardness. Finally, an application featuring the compaction of a 316L stainless steel cylindrical component is presented to illustrate the predictive capabilities of the cap material model as well as the accuracy of the acquired material parameter set.