Microwave Sintering: An Energy Efficient Process for Sintering Aluminium Metal Powder

Microwave sintering process is quite significant and unique in recent times for sintering material for densification because of its intrinsic advantages such as rapid heating rates, reduced processing times, uniform temperatures with minimal thermal gradients. Microwave sintering process leads to substantial energy savings with higher efficiency, improved properties, finer microstructures, environmental friendly process and with less environmental hazards. The concept of sintering metals in microwave has been attempted by many researcher. Though metals are known to reflect microwave radiation, researchers have confirmed sintering of metas in powder form through microwave. In this study, sintering of aluminium metal powder through microwave route has been attempted. The study indicated that aluminium metal powder compacts sintered through microwave process showed better physical, tribological and thermal properties compared to the ones sintered through conventional sintering methods.