Optimizing the Heat Treatment of Rare Earth-Transition Metal Sintered Magnets

Abstract

Rare earth transition metals magnets, as for example SmCo5, NdFeB and Sm(CoCuFeZr)z magnets are, very often, submitted to a post-sintering heat treatment where the coercivity increases. In many cases, a slow cooling between the sintering and the annealing temperatures is applied. To optimize the time and cooling rate of heat treatment, it was developed a model using the finite volume method. This model takes into account the diffusivities of the different atom species and also the boundaries of phase diagrams.