Fabrication of sintered steel wire mesh and its compressive properties

Porous steel wire mesh with open porosities of 33.90-56.27% and pore sizes of 25-1300 μm has been prepared by metallurgical route. The porous morphologies and porosities of the wire mesh have been investigated in terms of forming pressure, sintering temperature and sintering holding time. The pore size distribution in the as-prepared samples has been determined by means of metallographic statistic measurement. The results indicate that the total and open porosities are closely related to the forming pressure. Higher sintering temperature and longer holding time in the range of our experiments lead to finer porous structure, coarser joints between wires, and lower porosities. The steel wire mesh exhibits three-stage elastic-plastic behaviors under compressive loading which are similar to that of other cellular materials. The yield strength and Young's modulus of the steel wire mesh decrease rapidly with the increase in porosities. When the porosity increases from 33.90 to 56.27%, the yield strength drops from 46.9 to 14.8 MPa and the Young's modulus drops from 1.42 to 0.42 GPa.