2000-11-01 Pressing & Sintering

New High Performance PM Applications by Warm Compaction of Densmix Powders

EURO PM2000, in Münich, Germany. Author: Ulf Engström. To increase the competitiveness of PM compared to other manufacturing techniques there is a demand for alloy systems as well as processes which result in improved mechnical properties with maintained precision of tolerance control at reduced processing costs. Warm compaction was developed to be one possible technique to meet this objective. By warm compaction of low alloy steel it has now become possible to produce PM parts with uniform densities up to 7.4 g/cc by single compaction and sintering. The higher and more even density results in improved static and dynamic mechanical properties. However, warm compaction not only improves the static mechanical properties which opens up new opportunities to use PM in high performance applications that up to now have not been technically and economically feasible. In this paper some of the merits that have been found with warm compaction both in laboratory scale and in production of complex parts are described. Material properties and process robustness obtained with warm compaction of Densmix powders are presented. Future potential high performance applications that might be realised by utilising the merits of warm compaction of Densmix powders will be discussed.