LAUSR

Abstract In the powder metallurgy of titanium and titanium alloys, titanium powders produced through hydrogenation/dehydrogenation (HDH) approach and titanium hydride powder are extensively used. The choice of initial powder greatly influences the properties and performance of as-sintered materials. In the present study, comparative experiments were performed on two powders of various sizes to elucidate the peculiarities of their densification process and the characteristics (as-sintered density, impurity content, and tensile properties) of the processed materials. As expected, the sintering performance of both powder-type compacts were greatly affected by the specific surface and contact areas, so finer powders and higher compaction pressures were used to achieve higher densities upon sintering. However, the systematic results clearly indicated the advantage of using titanium hydride powder as a starting material in titanium powder metallurgy. At equal size, compaction, and sintering parameters, materials processed from titanium hydride powder had higher density and lower impurity content, thereby providing better balance of tensile properties compared with materials processed from HDH titanium powder. This advantage is explained by the higher relative density of green compacts made of brittle titanium hydride powder and by the higher sintering ability of such compacts activated by powder-released hydrogen.