GLUE INFILTRATION OF FREEFORM FABRICATION PRODUCT OF CAST IRON-PE/SILICA-PE COMPOSITE

Abstract

Due to the pressure-less sintering process, products of the SFF are commonly weak so that the strengthening process is needed. This paper reports a SFF product strengthening method with glue infiltration. Material of the specimen used the powders of Cast iron-PE and Silica-PE blend with particles size of 100µm (150 mesh) and 150µm (100 mesh) while cyanoacrylate glue was used as infiltrant. The sintering process was run at the temperature of 1350C and holding time of 2.5 hours. The product was shaped in the tensile strength, the density and the shrinkage test specimens. Before infiltration, a part of the specimens were burned out to increase the pores. The experiment was also conducted to observe the influence of curing process after infiltration on the tensile strength with varying curing temperature which includes 500C, 750C and 1000C. The experiment results show that the tensile strength of the cast iron-PE as well as silica-PE composite is significantly increased by glue infiltration. An increase in the tensile strength achieves around of 1100%.