Fabrication of Hollow Shaped Compact by Pulse Current Pressure Sintering Process and Characteristics of the Core Materials

The ceramics cores were applied for the Pulse Current Pressure Sintering (PCPS) method in order to consolidate the hollow shaped compact of the Al-12 mass% Si powder. In this process, the aluminum alloy powder was densified due to the shrinking of the core and plastic flow of the Al alloy powder itself. After sintering of hollow compact under the most suitable condition, the density was reached to 2.65 g/m exp 3 which is the 99% of relative density for the Al-12 mass% Si alloy. Various kinds of ceramics have been tried for the core material. As a result, it was found that the h-BN had best characteristics for the core, because it was easy to be compressed and broken down to be removed after sintering treatment.