New developments in thermo-optical-measurement devices

We present for the first time applications of our new thermo-optical measurement device TOM-AC in the field of powder metallurgy. The main features of the TOM-AC are contactless measurements of dimensional changes for samples of arbitrary shape, determination of wetting angles, and the monitoring of temperature changes during infiltration processes, which go along with exothermic reactions. All this can be done under atmospheric control, i.e. the gas atmosphere (e.g. vacuum, inert gas at different pressures) can be changed during the heat treatment by a given computer controlled program. We will present examples of shrinkage curves for the free sintering of metallic spheres, metallic foams and bi-materials, and for the infiltration process of SiC with liquid silicon.