Experimental investigation on workability and strain hardening behaviour of Fe–C–0.5Mn sintered composites

An experimental investigation into the workability and strain hardening behaviour of Fe–C–0.50Mn powder metallurgy steel composite sintered preforms under triaxial stress state has been carried out. Cold upset forming of the aforesaid composite preforms was conducted with variations in carbon content (0.05%, 0.10%, 0.15%, 0.20% and 0.25%) with an aspect ratio 0.45. The preforms were compacted at 1.2 GPa pressure and sintered at 950 ± 5 °C. Sintered specimens were cold deformed with uniform incremental loading. The effect of different percentage of carbon on the iron-based composite with common manganese content (0.50%) was investigated thoroughly in the cold deformation experiment. The effect of carbon on workability and strain hardening behaviour of the composites was analysed and presented. The analysis of the experimental results has shown that the steel which contains 0.10% carbon exhibited greater values of stresses, initial relative density, strain hardening and workability parameters.