Cyclic CIP of Reaction Bonded Aluminum Oxide (RBAO)

Reaction bonded aluminum oxide (RBAO) is a promising oxide ceramic for engineering components due to its interesting characteristics, such as high green strength, low-to-zero shrinkage, and advanced mechanical properties. In the present work, the effect of Cyclic CIP on compaction of RBAO precursors and on properties of reaction sintered RBAO bodies was investigated. RBAO compacts were made by Cyclic CIP at 20 and 1000 cycles. A small number of cycles leads to RBAO compacts with homogeneous microstructure, however, further cycling results in degradation of the microstructure. After sintering, strength values of up to 690MPa were obtained for samples with 20 cycles. This is more than 20% above the standard material made by ordinary CIP. This shows that Cyclic CIP can be applied as a successful compaction technique to improve the mechanical properties of metal/ceramic powder mixtures like RBAO precursor powders.