Application of Surfactant Activated Milling for Production of Nd–Fe–B Magnets by PLP Technology

Abstract

The granulometric composition of Nd–Fe–B powders has been studied in detail after vibratory milling for various times both without and with the addition of siloxane. Sintered magnets were produced by the powder metallurgy method that excluded the pressing of powders. Correlations between the particle size distribution in the initial powders, microstructure of sintered magnets, and their magnetic hysteresis properties have been established. The difference in methods for estimating the size of powder particles by two methods is demonstrated. It is shown that the size distributions of powder particles and magnet grains are bimodal and are described by a superposition of two lognormal distributions.