On the Machinability of Powder Metallurgy Austenitic Stainless Steels

Abstract

Powder Metallurgy (P/M) materials, especially those made of high strength steels, are often reported in the technical literature to have poor machinability when compared to their wrought or cast counterparts. In order to characterize the machinability of single phase P/M materials and to identify the influence of porosity on that behavior, the machinability of P/M 304L austenitic stainless steel was evaluated as a function of porosity, in the range of 64 to 90 percent of theoretical density. Machinability was defined in terms of the average drill point temperature. It was found that the drill temperature increased with porosity to a point. Further increases in porosity produced decreasing levels of average drill point temperature. The nonlinear machinability response was attributed to the offsetting contributions of the thermal conductivity, the work-hardening, and the bulk properties of the P/M material.