Friction consolidation of gas-atomized FeSi powders for soft magnetic applications

Soft magnetic materials are often limited in scalability due to conventional processes that do not retain beneficial microstructures, and their associated physical properties, during densification. In this work, friction consolidation (FC) has been studied to fabricate FeSi soft magnetic materials from gas-atomized powder precursors. FeSi powder is consolidated using variable pressure and tool rotation speed in an effort to evaluate this unique densification approach for potential improvements in magnetic properties. FC, due to the high shear deformation involved, is shown to result in uniform gradual grain structure refinement across the consolidated workpiece from the center nearest the tool to the edge. Magnetic properties along different orientations indicate little, if any, textural orientation in the refined grain structure. The effect of annealing on the magnetic properties is evaluated and shown to decrease coercivity. FC processing was able to retain the magnetization of the original gas-atomized powders but further process optimization is needed to reach the optimal coercivity for the soft magnetic materials applications.