Manufacturing Process : Powder Metallurgy

What is Powder Metallurgy?

Powder metallurgy (PM) is a term covering a wide range of ways in which materials or components are made from metal powders. PM processes can avoid, or greatly reduce, the need to use metal removal processes, thereby drastically reducing yield losses in manufacture and often resulting in lower costs.

Powder metallurgy is used for manufacturing products or articles from powdered metals by placing these powders in molds and are compacting the same using heavy compressive force.

Typical examples of such article or products are grinding wheels, filament wire, magnets, welding rods, tungsten carbide cutting tools, self-lubricating bearings electrical contacts and turbines blades having high temperature strength. The manufacture of parts by powder metallurgy process involves the manufacture of powders, blending, compacting, profiteering, sintering and a number of secondary operations such as sizing, coining, machining, impregnation, infiltration, plating, and heat treatment. The compressed articles are then heated to temperatures much below their melting points to bind the particles together and improve their strength and other properties. Few non-metallic materials can also be added to the metallic powders to provide adequate bond or impart some the needed properties. The products made through this process are very costly on account of the high cost of metal powders as well as of the dies used. The powders of almost all metals and a large quantity of alloys, and nonmetals may be used. The application of powder metallurgy process is economically feasible only for high mass production. Parts made by powder metallurgy process exhibit properties, which cannot be produced by conventional methods. Simple shaped parts can be made to size with high precision without waste, and completely or almost ready for installation.

POWDER METALLURGY PROCESS:

The powder metallurgy process consists of the following basic steps:

1. Formation of metallic powders.

2. Mixing or blending of the metallic powders in required proportions.

3. Compressing and compacting the powders into desired shapes and sizes in form of

articles.

4. Sintering the compacted articles in a controlled furnace atmosphere.

5. Subjecting the sintered articles to secondary processing if needed so.

ADVANTAGES OF POWDER METALLURGY

1. The processes of powder metallurgy are quite and clean.

2. Articles of any intricate or complicated shape can be manufactured.

3. The dimensional accuracy and surface finish obtainable are much better for many applications and hence machining can be eliminated.

4. Unlike casting, press forming machining, no material is being wasted as scrap and the process makes utilizes full raw material

5. Hard to process materials such as diamond can be converted into usable components and tools through this process.

6. High production rates can be easily achieved.

7. The phase diagram constraints, which do not allow an alloy formation between mutually insoluble constituents in liquid state, such as in case of copper and lead are removed in this process and mixtures of such metal powders can be easily

processed and shaped through this process.

8. This process facilitates production of many such parts, which cannot be produced

through other methods, such as sintered carbides and self-lubricating bearings.

9. The process enables an effective control over several properties such as purity,

density, porosity, particle size, etc., in the parts produced through this process.

10. The components produced by this process are highly pure and bears longer life.

11. It enables production of parts from such alloys, which possess poor cast ability.

12. It is possible to ensure uniformity of composition, since exact proportions of

constituent metal powders can be used.

13. The preparation and processing of powdered iron and nonferrous parts made in this

way exhibit good properties, which cannot be produced in any other way.

14. Simple shaped parts can be made to size with 100 micron accuracy without waste

15. Porous parts can be produced that could not be made in any other way.

16. Parts with wide variations in compositions and materials can be produced.

17. Structure and properties can be controlled more closely than in other fabricating

processes.

18. Highly qualified or skilled labor is not required. in powder metallurgy process

19. Super-hard cutting tool bits, which are impossible to produce by other manufacturing

processes, can be easily manufactured using this process.

20. Components shapes obtained possess excellent reproducibility.

21. Control of grain size, relatively much uniform structure and defect such voids and

blowholes in structure can be eliminated.