The properties of sintered steels doped with manganese and copper and produced using copperbearing ferromanganese master alloys are examined with respect to temperature and concentrations of the master alloy (3-10%) and graphite (0-1.0%) in the charge. It is shown that increase in the concentration of the master alloy and graphite leads to the relevant increase in steel strength. The hardness of steel with the minimum content of the master alloy (3%) becomes substantially higher when carbon is introduced and weakly depends on sintering temperature. If the concentration of the master alloy is higher (7 and 10%), the effect of sintering temperature on hardness noticeably increases, while the effect of graphite content substantially decreases. With increasing concentration of the master alloy, the hardness of the sintered steel becomes higher regardless of sintering temperature and graphite content of the charge.Keywords: sintered steel doped with manganese and copper, master alloy, graphite, iron powder, ferromanganese, sintering.Sintered steels doped with manganese have increasingly been used for the manufacture of products for structural purposes. The economic and technical effectiveness of manganese for doping sintered structural steels is due to the relatively low cost and availability of this element, which is ascertained by a number of papers [1][2][3][4].Ferromanganese is commonly used as the main raw material for the introduction of manganese in the production of sintered manganese steels [4]. Nevertheless, the papers [5,6] show that copper-bearing ferromanganese master alloys can efficiently be used for this purpose over a wide range of ratios between elements. Owing to the presence of a low-melting eutectic in the Mn-Cu system with a melting point below the sintering temperature of compacts, these master alloys not only activate sintering but also largely prevent the formation of oxide films on ferromanganese particles.The study of basic mechanical properties of sintered steels [6] has shown that increase in the concentrations of copper-bearing ferromanganese master alloys in the charge leads to higher hardness and strength of the alloys. However, the introduction of more than 5 wt.% master alloy is feasible neither technically nor economically. This has necessitated a search for other ways to improve the main mechanical properties of sintered steels. One of the ways may be to introduce additional carbon to the charge (in excess of that contained in the starting ferromanganese) as graphite powder.
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