Sintering of ferritic and austenitic nanopowders using Spark Plasma Sintering

This study aims at presenting a way to obtain nanostructured materials. Austenitic stainless steel (316L) nanopowders and ferritic/martensitic alloy steels (Fe14Cr) are sintered with the Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) technique. This technique leads to a fully dense/nano-sized microstructure material after a short treatment. The optimal sintering temperature was found to be 850°C for both materials. The relationship between the Vickers Hardness and scale of the microstructure is in good agreement with the Hall-Petch Law.