Verfahren zur Herstellung von keramischen oder pulvermetallurgischen Bauteilen

A process for producing ceramic or powder metallurgical components involves: (a) forming a thermoplastic slip of 0.05-4.0 Pa. sec. viscosity from ceramic or powder metallurgical materials and one or more thermoplastic binders; (b) introducing the slip at 40-180 deg. C into a mould which contains one or more preformed parts and which is evacuated to 5 Pa to 0.09 MPa before, during and/or after slip introduction; and (c) heat treating the resulting consolidated green body. Preferably silicon nitride, silicon carbide, aluminium oxide, zirconium oxide or aluminium nitride is used as the ceramic material and hard metal is used as the powder metallurgical material. The mould may be a split mould of metal and the preformed parts preferably consist of ceramic, powder metallurgical or metallic materials. ADVANTAGE - The process allows economical production of complicated shaped components using preformed parts which can be accurately positioned and retained in position so that the reject rate i s low.