The Effect of Different Urea Compositions

on Production of Porous Stainless Steel

Type 316L through Powder Metallurgy
Technique
Zulaikha ABDULLAH, Sufizar AHMAD, Murni Faridah M.RAFTER,
Azmahani SADIKIN, Mohd nasrull A. RAHMAN, and Azzura ISMAIL
Faculty of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn
Malaysia (UTHM) 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia

Introduction
(a) (b)

 Metal foams have great properties such high stiffness, great

mechanical strength and high energy absorption that cannot be
Pore Strut
obtained from ceramic and polymer foams [1].
 The present study aims to fabricate the porous stainless steel (type 500µm 500µm

316L) by using urea as space holder material through powder

(c) (d)
metallurgy technique.
Pore
 Stainless steel (SS316L) powders was used as metallic material
were mixed with urea and polyethylene glycol(PEG) as binder using
ball milling machine, compacted at 8 tons and sinter by using tube
furnace in high purity Argon (Ar) atmosphere. Density and porosity Strut
test and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was conducted to 500µm 500µm

characterize the physical and morphological characteristic. (f)

(e)
Pore

Methodology Strut
SS316L powder, urea particles, Uniaxial Pressing Machine
PEG particles
500µm
500µm

(g) (h)
Tube Furnace

Pore

Strut

500µm 500µm

(i) (j)
Strut

Roller Mixer

Green Compact Pore

Sintered Sample

500µm 500µm

Fig. 3. Comparative SEM image for porous SS316L at composition of (a, b) 60 wt.
%; (c, d) 55 wt. %; (e, f) 50 wt. %; (g, h) 45 wt. %; (i, j) 40 wt. % of urea content
Mixing SS316L
Compact the Sinter the

Conclusions
powder, urea
mixtures using samples using
and PEG using
Raw Materials uniaxial tube furnace in
roller mixer in
pressing Argon(Ar)
about 15
machine atmosphere  Porous SS316L is successfully fabricated via powder metallurgy
minutes
technique based on space-holder method.
 Porous SS316L with 40 wt. % composition recorded the highest
sintered density value of 4.36 g/cm3 due to the decreasing of urea
content into the formulation and allow densification occur between
Density and Porosity stainless steel particles[2]. Porous SS316L with 60 wt. % of urea content
testing was performed to
the sintered samples
produce highest apparent porosity of 56.22% compared to other
and morphology compositions due to the highest amount of space holder into the
analysis was examined formulation[3].
using SEM  It can be seen that the morphology of stainless steel foam with
Density and Porosity Scanning Electron Microscopy composition of 60 wt. % also forms larger pores with the struts clearly
Apparatus Apparatus (SEM)
formed in the foams structures which is encouraging the cell ingrowth
Fig. 1. Flowchart for porous SS316L fabrication method between the implant and the bones and thus have potential to be applied
in biomedical application.

Results Acknowledgement
Authors would like to acknowledge the support from Malaysian Ministry of
Education for financial support through MyBrain15 scholarship under MyPhD
program.

References
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of Titanium Alloy Foams, Int. J. Mech. Mater. Eng. 5(2) (2010) 244–250.
[2] N. Bekoz and E. Oktay, Effects of carbamide shape and content on
processing and properties of steel foams, J. Mater. Process. Technol. 212(10)
(2012) 2109–2116.
[3] S. Joshi and G. K. Gupta, Synthesis & Characterization of Stainless Steel
foam via Powder Metallurgy Taking Acicular Urea as Space Holder, Mater.
Fig. 2. Graph of sintered density and apparent porosity versus composition of urea Sci.Res. India. 12(1) (2015) 43–49. www.postersession.com