Micro-sintering Through a FAST Process

As demands on miniature/micro-metal-products increase significantly, micro-metal-forming becomes an attractive option in the manufacturing of these products due to its advantageous characteristics for mass production. Forming is a particularly appropriate manufacturing technique for micro-parts, as often they have a complicated shape and machining would be time-consuming and produce low yield. To address this issue, a novel micro-forming technology, named as micro-fields-activated sintering technology (Micro-FAST, combining micro-forming and FAST), was introduced for the forming of micro-components. In Micro-FAST, loose powders were pressed and sintered to form micro-parts with coupled multifields activation, i.e., electrical field, stress field, and temperature field, with a Gleeble-1500D thermal simulation machine. The experimental results show that Micro-FAST is an efficient process, having lower energy consumption and little impact on the environment as a result of directly forming the component from loose powders.