Some aspects of the roll compaction of strip from iron powder by the BISRA process

Steel strip has been made from iron powder by the BISRA process. A water atomised powder and a reduced powder have been characterised. The water atomised powder has been sieved, elutriated and re-blended to form a series of approximately log-linear size distributions, and these have also been characterised. Particular attention has been paid to particle size distribution, apparent density, tap density, compressibility and weight specific surface. Mechanical and physical properties of the strip have been measured at various stages in its production. The properties have been found to depend on the processing conditions and on the powder characteristics. The processing conditions used did not produce satisfactory strip when very fine water atomised powder was used; an explanation for this has been proposed. [Continues.]