New Opportunities for Low Alloy Steels—Master Alloys for Liquid Phase Sintering

The Master-alloy (MA) alloy route to promote a liquid phase during sintering has great potential to reduce costs in low alloyed sintered steels, meanwhile enabling the introduction of innovative alloy systems with Cr, Mn and Si. However, in order to successfully modify the performance of steels, multi requirements must be met, including, for example, solubility with the base material, compatibility with the usual sintering atmospheres, homogeneous distribution of the powdered master alloy in the material and the control of secondary porosity. Efforts have been made to properly design the composition of MA, to identify the reducing agents and to understand how they affect the wetting and liquid spreading all over the sintered part. This work reviews these key aspects for the efficient development of steels and explores the possibility to achieve a composition that can act as liquid former or as sinter braze adapting its use to the component requirement.