Liquid phase sintering of aluminium alloys

The principle that alloys are designed to accommodate the manufacture of go ods made from them as much as the properties required of them in service ha s not been widely applied to pressed and sintered P/M aluminium alloys. Mos t commercial alloys made from mixed elemental blends are identical to stand ard wrought alloys. Alternatively, alloys can be designed systematically us ing the phase diagram characteristics of ideal liquid phase sintering syste ms. This requires consideration of the solubilities of the alloying element s in aluminium, the melting points of the elements, the eutectics they form with aluminium and the nature of the liquid phase. The relative diffusivit ies are also important. Here we show that Al-Sn, which closely follows thes e ideal characteristics, has a much stronger sintering response than either Al-Cu or Al-Zn, both of which have at least one non-ideal characteristic. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.