Characterization of the structure and magnetic properties of Fe49Co2V made by the powder metal injection molding route

Abstract

The semi-hard magnetic alloy Fe49Co2V is widely used in electronics and automation. Many of these parts are complex ones which can be produced with significant advantages by the PIM technology. In this work the feedstock was prepared by mixing the starting powder with a "Solvent System" binder. The injected green samples of toroidal shape were first subjected to solvent debinding. Secondary thermal debinding at optimized temperatures and sintering in the temperature range 1370-1460°C was performed in hydrogen in an Elnik System furnace. Magnetic properties were measured from hysteresis graphs for soft magnetic materials and the main properties such as such as remanent induction Br coercive force Hcb, saturation induction Bs and relative permeability μr were determined. The hysteresis curves obtained were correlated to the microstructures formed during sintering. The results obtained were compared with the data for other technologies of preparing Fe-Co-V from available literature. It is shown that the PIM samples reach magnetic property values comparable to those obtained by conventional methods.