Abstract: This paper describes the sintering characteristics of Fe-Cu and Fe-Cu-C mixed powder compacts and investigates the regularities of the compact size changement at different sintering temperature and the inhibition of carbon on unusual expansion of the compacts. The present study shows that both reduced iron-copper and electrolytic iron-copper powder compacts have the phenomina of unusual expansion during sintering.The expansion value of the compact contAlNing 8%(wt) of Cu reaches the maximum. The interdiffusion between Fe and Cu can be inhibitedi by the addition of carbon and thereby unusual expansion of sintered Fe-Cu alloy is inhibited. The effects of inhibition increase with the carbon contents.