Powder metallurgy is a growing sector in industrial production, as it offers outstanding energy, cost and material savings in comparison with established processing routes such as casting. Hot work toll steels are usually produced by ingot metallurgy, but also by powder metallurgy, namely hot isostatic pressing and powder forging routes. In this paper we investigate the possibility of production of a hot work tool steel (AISI H13) by conventional (die compaction and pressureless sintering) and metal injection molding routes, aiming to reduce cost and production time. The sintering behavior was studied from 1250 °C until 1430 °C and the resulting parts were compared in terms of microstructure, hardness and tensile strength. The results showed that both shaping routes together with pressureless sintering are suitable to produce this alloy. By combining the best shaping approach and a tailored sintering cycle, it was possible to produce samples with 400 HV10 as well as tensile strength of 1 GPa, which are comparable to the ones obtained by powder forging.

Copper is a well know material for use as heat sink or heat exchanger. However, copper has a considerable low tensile strength and temperature limit. A material that has a good thermal conductivity, low cost, but also resistance is the desired. Effects of copper on the sintering and thermal properties of iron-copper composites produced by powder metallurgy and Fe on copper-iron composites have been investigated. Copper and iron were varied from 20 to 80 vol.% in the samples, alternating the continuous phase. Sintering studies were performed by in-situ dilatometry aiming to define the proper conditions for sintering, without swelling normally associated with copper. Results indicate that the type of sintering, final microstructure, specially the phases relation and distribution and not only the amount of copper, have a great effect into the thermal properties. By controlling the sintering parameters, it is possible to obtain dimensionally stable samples with higher thermal conductivity and lower copper amount.