Method of manufacturing sintered compact

Abstract

In a method of manufacturing a sintered compact, a green body formed of titanium or titanium alloy powder is sintered in a furnace to produce a sintered compact. In this case, the green body is sintered under the condition that it is placed on a setter within a container formed of carbon materials. The setter is constructed from a base member and a plate-like green body contact portion joint onto the base material. The green body contact portion is formed of oxides of metals whose standard free energy of oxide formation is higher than that of the titanium or titanium alloy of the green body. The setter which has been already used is reused after the surfaces of the green body contact portion is ground or polished, so that a new green body is placed on the setter and then it is sintered again. In this way, increase of oxide in the obtained titanium and titanium alloy powder during sintering is restrained, thereby enabling to produce a high-quality sintered compact having a high dimensional accuracy easily with a low cost.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.