Purpose of forming is to produce semi-finished product with certain shape by powder, and the methods are as follows:

1.Direct powder forming, or called powder pressing, such as rigid module pressing, ramming forming, cold isostatic pressing, dry bag isostatic pressing, etc.

2.Plastic lump material forming, also called plastic forming simply, such as plastic blank pressing, roll forming, etc. 

3.Slurry forming, also called slip casting, such as power-slurry casting, centrifugal casting, tape casting, etc.

4.Heat densification forming, such as hot pressing, hot isostatic pressing, hot forging, etc.

5.Injection moulding.

6.Other methods, such as melt casting, plasma spray forming, chemical vapor deposition, etc.

Direct powder forming-rigid module pressing

This is the most widely used forming method, due to the friction between powder particles, powder and stamping, powder and module wall, pressing force will have some loss, which will cause non-uniform density distribution of the pressed blank. When the pressing force is applied to one direction, density will decrease in the direction of force. To improve homogeneous density distribution of the blank, bidirectional pressing can be used (including floating female module), besides,  mixing some lubricant such as oleic acid, zinc stearate and paraffin in the powder is also effective.

Usually, pressing pressure of ceramic material is 40~100MPa. Pressure forming is widely used for product that with simple structure and small size. With the improved compression moulding design and compression machine automation, some more complex product can also be manufactured by pressing pressure, and this method is easy to realize automation.