On the Performance of 17Ni/(10NiO-NiFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub>) Cermet by Hot-Press Sintering Technology: Sintering Temperature Effects

Abstract

The sintering behavior and the resulting of cermet are influenced not only by the characteristics and impurities of the raw materials but also are found to be dependent on the thermal history during the fabrication process. Our work is concerned with the effect of sintering temperature on the mechanical properties of 17Ni/(10NiO-NiFe2O4) cermet. The nickel ferrite based cermet were prepared by hot-press sintering technology at 16MPa and sintered at temperatures ranging from 900 to 1200°C. The microstructure, phase compositions and mechanical properties were studied by SEM, XRD and three point bending strength tests respectively. It has been found that, the relative density, hardness and bending strength of NiFe2O4 based cermet have a great influence upon the sintering temperature, and an optimal sintering temperature, e.g. 1100°C is chosen through our experiments. The highest bending strength of 125.89Mpa could be obtained under the sintering temperature of 1100°C. Meanwhile, the thermal shock resistance increases as the sintering temperature increases.