Process and Material Information

Why Powdered Metal? Powdered Metal offers efficiency in material and energy use while providing high production rates. These characteristics translate to cost effective parts requiring few process operations to complete.

The Basic Process:

1) Feed shoe moves over empty die cavity, upper punch is raising		2) Feed shoe retracts, filling die as upper punch comes down over die		3) Upper punch enters die and compacts powder		4) Upper punch raises out of die, ejection cycle begins

5) Compacted part ejects from die		6) Feed shoe contacts ejected part and moves it away from die cavity		7) Feed shoe and "kicker " continue forward to move part away from press while die cavity refills		6) Feed shoe retracts, cycle starts over

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Furnaces/Sintering: The green compact is heated in a controlled atmosphere to temperatures nearing 2100 F (for ferrous materials). The sintering process metallurgically bonds the powder particles, imparting the required mechanical properties. A powdered metal part at this stage will have some porosity throughout (6.8 g/cc density = 12% porosity). Most of this porosity can be removed through infiltration, the addition of a copper slug during the sinter process.

Furnaces: Advantage has 1 brazing furnace in addition to 5 sintering furnaces, each capable of sintering about 350 lbs of product per hour. The sintering atmosphere used in the furnaces is nitrogen/hydrogen for consistent product quality.

 

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Materials: A variety of materials are available to meet product needs. These are bronze, iron, steel, copper or nickel steel and a variety of alloy steels. Material property standards are available from the Metal Powder Industries Federation.

 

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