Sintering apparatus and process
The Sintering processes were done in special equipment for pressure-assisted induction Sintering (PAIS).
A specially designed inductive power supply working at a frequency of 11 kHz enabled homogeneous heating of the samples.
The scheme of the apparatus for the PAIS process is given in รูปที่3 .
More details about the PAIS method are available elsewhere.
The material was placed in a graphite die between two graphite punches in a vacuum chamber.
The pressing pressure was 65 MPa.
The pressed powder was heated to 850 องศาเซลเซียส by an induction coil with three heating powers of 16,20,and 25 kW and then cooled to ambient temperature.
All processes were repeated twice.
During the process, the temperature was measured close to the specimen surface with five thermocouples (... 0.5 mm) every 500 ms.