Powder metallurgy is a manufacturing process that involves using metal powder, or a mixture of metal powder and non-metal powder, as a raw material. The powder is then formed and sintered to produce a range of metal materials, composite materials, and various types of articles.
Powder metallurgy shares similarities with ceramics production and belongs to the powder sintering technology family. As a result, a series of new powder metallurgy technologies can also be used to create ceramic materials.
The advantages of powder metallurgy technology have made it a critical tool in solving new material problems and playing a decisive role in the development of new materials.
Powder metallurgy involves creating powder and manufacturing products. Powder metallurgy is primarily a metallurgical process, as the name suggests.
The products created using powder metallurgy often extend beyond the realm of materials and metallurgy, encompassing multiple fields, such as materials and metallurgy, machinery and mechanics.
Modern metal powder 3D printing, in particular, combines various technologies such as mechanical engineering, CAD, reverse engineering, layered manufacturing, numerical control, material science, and laser technology. This integration has made powder metallurgy product technology a comprehensive and modern technology that spans across several disciplines.
Characteristics
Powder metallurgy offers a distinct chemical composition as well as mechanical and physical properties that are not attainable through traditional fusion casting methods.
Powder metallurgy techniques enable the direct production of porous, semi-dense, or fully dense materials and articles. This includes oil-containing bearings, gears, cams, guides, tools, and other items, which require less cutting during the manufacturing process.
(1) Powder metallurgy technology can minimize the segregation of alloy components and eliminate coarse and uneven cast structure.
The production of high-performance materials such as rare earth permanent magnets, rare earth hydrogen storage materials, rare earth luminescent materials, rare earth catalysts, high-temperature superconductors, and new metal materials like Al-Li alloy, heat-resistant Al alloy, superalloy, powder corrosion-resistant stainless steel, powder high-speed steel, and high-temperature structural materials such as intermetallic compounds, is crucial.
(2) A variety of high-performance non-equilibrium materials, including amorphous, microcrystalline, quasicrystal, nanocrystalline, and supersaturated solid solutions, can be prepared.
These materials have excellent electrical, magnetic, optical and mechanical properties.
(3) Powder metallurgy allows for easy realization of various types of recombination and enables each component material to fully exhibit its respective characteristics. This process technology is ideal for producing high-performance metal-based and ceramic composite materials at a low cost.
(4) With powder metallurgy, it becomes possible to produce materials and products with special structures and performances that are unattainable through ordinary smelting methods. Examples of such materials include new porous biological materials, porous separation membrane materials, high-performance structural ceramic abrasives, and functional ceramic materials.
(5) Powder metallurgy makes near-net formation and automated mass production achievable, thus effectively reducing production resources and energy consumption.
(6) By utilizing powder metallurgy, it becomes possible to make full use of raw materials such as ore, tailings, steelmaking sludge, rolling steel scales, and recycling waste metal. It is a new technology that enables effective material regeneration and comprehensive utilization.
Powder metallurgy technology is also used to create common machining tools and hardware grinding tools.
Application field
Enterprises related to powder metallurgy are primarily utilized in spare parts production and research for the automotive industry, equipment manufacturing, metal industry, aerospace, military industry, instrumentation, hardware tools, electronic appliances, and other fields. They also engage in the production of related raw materials, accessories, various types of powder-making equipment, and sintering equipment manufacturing.
Their products include bearings, gears, carbide tools, molds, friction products, and more.
In the military industry, heavy-duty weapons and equipment such as armor-piercing projectiles, torpedoes, aircraft, and tank brakes require the use of powder metallurgy in their production.
(1) Applications: (automobile, motorcycle, textile machinery, industrial sewing machines, power tools, hardware tools, engineering machinery, etc.) various powder metallurgy (iron-copper-based) parts.
(2) Classification:
- Powder metallurgy porous material
- Powder metallurgy antifriction material
- Powder metallurgy friction material
- Powder metallurgy structural parts
- Powder metallurgy mold material
- Powder metallurgy electromagnetic material
- Powder metallurgy high temperature material
