Filling Density and Green Density of different ring-shaped parts as affected by filling strategy

The influence of compaction strategy on compressibility and densification of metal powders has been extensively studied in previous work; effective compaction mechanics relationships and a densification model have been derived on experimental basis. Nevertheless, such studies also highlighted the need for further investigation concerning filling step, playing major role in obtaining high density, homogeneously distributed. This work focuses on filling step, considering the influence of both geometry, and filling strategy. Ring shaped parts with different height to thickness ratios (H/T) have been produced, also varying filling parameters as filling shoe speed, suction speed, and number of shakes of the filling shoe. Filling density was derived, as a function of above parameters, also highlighting the most critical parameters affecting filling density. Moreover, green density was measured in different points, referring to filling shoe movement, aiming at identifying the effect of filling strategy on flatness and parallelism of planes resulting from compaction.