Powder Metallurgy Review, Winter 2021, Vol. 10 No. 4

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In addition to over forty pages of news from the Powder Metallurgy industry, the 120-page Winter 2021 issue of Powder Metallurgy Review magazine (Vol. 10 No. 4) includes the following articles and special features:

Tesla teardown: Identifying potential uses for PM in electric vehicle transmissions

Whilst the future looks electric, with ever more electrically-powered vehicles entering the market, there are still lucrative opportunities for the Powder Metallurgy industry.

Höganäs AB’s Dr Anders Flodin, a long-time advocate of PM transmission gears for conventionally powered cars, and Babak Kianian, PhD candidate at Lund University, believe that one such opportunity is for PM gears in EV transmissions. To understand more, a Tesla Model S was the subject of a teardown and its transmission components analysed to understand if PM alternatives are suitable for such an application, and what advantages they might bring.

Can European research still claim to be ‘world class’? Prof José M Torralba on the changed PM research base

In the history of the Powder Metallurgy industry, Europe has been a research leader, with major European universities and research institutes paving the way to the identification of new materials, processing techniques, and applications for the technology. But is that still the case in 2021?

In this article, Dr David Whittaker speaks to Prof José M Torralba, a leading expert in the European PM research landscape, and hears his views on the current state of global PM research, the factors limiting development in the European PM industry, and directions for future research and development.

How to make metal powders. Part 1: An introduction to atomisation, process fundamentals and powder characteristics

The rise of metal Additive Manufacturing has resulted in renewed interest in metal powder production. A market once dominated by a small number of specialist powder producers has now seen the arrival of a diverse range of competitors, all hoping to capitalise on the promised opportunities of metal powder-based part production. As many are discovering, however, making powders with the required characteristics, to the necessary standards, and profitably, is far from easy.

Here, in the first instalment of a four-part series, two masters of metal powder atomisation, Joe Strauss and John Dunkley, introduce the process.

Starting out in powder production: The story of Fomas Group’s Mimete metal powder business

Spun out of Fomas Group in 2017, Mimete S.r.l has quickly carved out a position in the metal powder market as a provider of high-performance, gas atomised iron, nickel and cobalt-base alloy powders for metal Additive Manufacturing. But how did a company born of a forging specialist make the transition to advanced metal powder producer?

In this article, Luca van der Heide speaks to senior employees from Fomas Group and Mimete, who share how the company has acquired the necessary technical expertise for powder production, providing special insight into the techniques and products they have developed to live up to the challenges of a new, fast-changing market.

The creation of a Powder Metallurgy market leader: China’s NBTM New Materials Group Co., Ltd.

When NBTM New Materials Group announced its acquisition of Shanghai Future High-tech in January 2020, the already-vibrant Chinese PM industry shifted up a gear, accelerating the development of the country’s press and sinter PM market and helping to shape the future of its Metal Injection Moulding industry.

For this article, Dr Q introduces NBTM, a Chinese industry leader, and speaks to Zhu Zhirong, CEO, and Mao Zengguang, CTO, about the technical approach and management style that has allowed this company to take the lead in this competitive national market.

Tungsten heavy alloys: An exploration of how key property combinations enable better mechanical performance

Applications for PM tungsten heavy alloys span from components for wristwatches and nuclear fusion plasma systems to parts for X-ray systems and eccentric vibrators. Given the huge range of applications, it stands to reason that an equally large variety of compositions, processing cycles and microstructures are used to deliver target combinations of density, strength, hardness, stiffness and conductivity in PM tungsten alloy parts.

In this article, Prof Randall German reviews the relationships between key material properties used to achieve these combinations.

Pharmaceuticals and PM are closer than you think: A new approach to understanding powder compaction and tablet characterisation

While the pharmaceutical and Powder Metallurgy industries both work with the compaction of expensive, specially formulated powders, beyond this basic similarity they are not typically seen as having a great deal of overlap. However, a recent study by Chris Freemantle, Pilot Tools (Pty) Ltd, and Henry Kafeman, HDK Solutions Ltd, found that the use of pharmaceutical tablet characterisation methods could benefit the Powder Metallurgy industry.

In this case study, the authors share how their use of a Gamlen powder compaction analyser, initially designed for pharmaceutical application, helped them to better measure and understand metal powder compaction for cemented carbide tool manufacture.