Gelcasting of 316L stainless steel

A novel near-net process, gelcasting, was successfully used to prepare larger size 316L stainless steel parts with complex shape. In this study, the effects of process parameters on the viscosity of the slurry and the dry green strength were investigated. The results show that gas atomization (GA) powder is more suitable for gelcasting compared with water atomization (WA) powder. The maximum solid loading is 55vol% for ball-milled slurry with GA powders. And the optimum amounts of monomers (acrylamide (AM)+methylenebisacrylamide (MBAM); the mass ratio, 30:1) and initiator in the AM system are 1.8% (based on the weight of metal powder) and 0.8%-1.4% (based on the weight of monomers), respectively, at which, the maximum green strength obtained is 33.7 MPa. The mechanical properties of the sintered specimen are as follows: ultimate tensile strength, 493 MPa; yield strength, 162 MPa; and HRB, 72.