Use of a deformable interface for the fabrication of complex parts

Abstract

An assembly for densification under load along at least one direction of compression. The assembly includes: at least one volume to be densified having a powdery and / or porous composition and having variations in thickness along the direction of compression; and at least one counter-form of a powdery and / or porous composition, having at least one face facing at least one portion of the volume. The face and each of the portions are separated by at least one deformable interface layer.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The field of the invention is that of the fabrication of mechanical parts of complex shapes by the densification of powdery or porous materials.[0002]More particularly, the invention relates to the improvement of an assembly of powdery or porous materials adapted to being densified under load both in its use and the technical characteristics of the complex mechanical parts obtained.PRIOR ART[0003]Many methods of densification of powders or porous materials are known at present and are used daily in industry. These methods include especially forging, hot pressing, hot isostatic pressing and spark plasma sintering (SPS) in the following description, and are aimed at consolidating a defined volume of metallic powders, ceramics or polymers by the heating of this volume and the application of unixial pressure or multiaxial pressure.[0004]SPS especially is a known way of subjecting a cylindrical volume of compressed powder to a pulsed current enabling a signifi...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides an assembly for densifying complex shapes using a deformable interface layer, which enables the simultaneous fabrication of multiple parts with preserved microstructure and scaling of densification. This method has low complexity and the deformation equation helps in accurately defining the deformations of the volume during the process. The technical effect of this invention is the ability to efficiently and simultaneously densify complex-shaped parts with maintained microstructure.

Problems solved by technology

The modes of densification used by SPS however have the drawback of causing inhomogeneities of densification when complex-shaped parts shapes have major differences in thickness.

This result can be explained by the non-uniformity of the shrinkage observed between the two zones of different thicknesses.

Thus, once the low thickness zone is totally densified, the sintering is interrupted and the high thickness zone necessitating more shrinkage cannot terminate its densification process.

In the context of such an assembling, the making of parts of complex shapes by the classic SPS method is therefore made difficult given the complex geometry of the parts to be fabricated which is expressed by differences of thickness and involves variations of shrinkages.

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