MANUFACTURING PROCESS- I (MEC305)

Unit 4:- POWDER METALLURGY

The powder metallurgy process consists of mixing elemental or alloy powder, compacting
the mixture in a die and then sintering or heating the resultant shape in a controlled
atmosphere. Powder metallurgy is a highly developed method of manufacturing ferrous and
nonferrous materials. It is a chip less working process. This process is cost effective in
producing simple or complex part in manufacturing (Production) rates which can range from
a few hundreds to several thousands parts per hour. Due to high cost of die and equipment
this process is suitable for mass production only. The basic steps involved in the production
process are given below.

• Preparation of powder or powders of desired composition.

• Mixing and blending – Powder are mixed thoroughly and blended to ensure desired
property.
• Compacting the powders into desired shape and size and providing strength to the parts.
• Sintering – Green compacts are heated at elevated temperature to impart strength.

Page1 of 9
By:- Shashi Ranjan Prasad singh
 ADVANTAGE OF POWDER METALLURGY
• Parts with closed dimensional tolerance (nearest shape) and good surface finish can be
produced.
• It eliminate or minimizes scrap losses by more than 97% of the raw material in the finished
part, unlike other process.
• Process can be fully automated hence unskilled labour can be employed which reduces
labour cost.
• It eliminate or minimizes machining.
• It facilitates manufacture of certain parts by mixing different metals, metals and non metals,
metals and ceremics etc to obtain desired properties which is impossible with other working
processes.
• High production rates from 500-1000 parts/hour can be achieved.
• It facilitates manufactures of small and unique shape part which cannot be produce by any
other manufacturing process.
• Detect free component with uniform structure can produce.
• Non equilibrium composition possible e.g. cr. alloys.
LIMITATIONS OF POWDER METALLURGY
• The cost of material in powder form is quite high this cost is offset for Large volume
production by absence of scrap and low labour cost.
• Products with intricate design are difficult to produce as there is little flow of metal powder
during compaction.
• The residual porosity left in sintered parts makes then rough.
• This process is economically feasible for Large volume production due to high cost of dies
and equipments.
• Producing parts of Large size and weight is quite expensive due to costly dies.
• It is difficult to compress some metal powders and also difficult to procure some metal
Page2 of 9
By:- Shashi Ranjan Prasad singh
 powders.
• The density of compact is not uniform throughout.
• Some e.g. zr present explosion hazard.
• Parts produce by powder metallurgy have low impact and fatigue strength as compared to
other method.
• Healt problems from atmospheric contamination of the work place.

APPLICATION OF POWDER METALLURGY

The application of powder metallurgy components fall in two main groups-
1. First are component that are difficult to manufacture by other method such as those made
from tungsten, Molybdenum and tungsten carbide.

2. The second group consists of components that offer a cost effective alternatives to
machined components, casting and forging.
Some applications are as follows-
• Used to produce porous parts e.g filters.
• Some components of tungsten employed in jet engines are made by powder metallurgy.
• Auto mobile components such as clutch plates, connecting rods, cam shafts and piston
rings etc.
• Many types of hard and soft magnetic components.
• Grinding wheels are manufactured by using steel and diamond powder.
• Nozzle for rockets and missiles are made using silver infiltrated tungsten.
• It is used to produce complex shaped parts which require machining when produced by
other methods e.g. gears.
• Electrical bushes for motors are made by combining metallic and non metallic material.
• Some parts used in clocks, type writers, calculators, permanent magnet etc. are made by
powder metallurgy
PRODUCTION OF METAL POWDER
Some common methods used in powder production depending on type and nature of
metals are as follows.
1. Atomization:-
In this process molten metal is broken up into small droplets by spraying it on the streme of inest

gas or air jets and rapidly frozen before the drops come into contact with each other or with the
solid surface this technique is applicable to all metals that can be melted and is used commercially
for the production of iron, copper, brass, bronze, lead, zinc etc.

Page3 of 9
By:- Shashi Ranjan Prasad singh
 2. Crushing and Milling

Crushing and milling operations are perform on brittle or less ductile materials (metals).
Metal particles are crushed in crushing m/c for final powder.

3. Electrolysis Process

Page4 of 9
By:- Shashi Ranjan Prasad singh
 By choosing suitable conditions such as electrolytic composition and concentration temp and
current density many metals can be deposited in a spungy or powdered state further
processing is required which yields high purity and high density powders. Cu is the primary
mental produced.

4. Chemical Process
The most common chemical powder treatments involve oxide reduction precipitate form
solution and thermal decomposition. The powder produced can have a great variation in
properties and yet have closely controlled particle size and shape.

CHARACTERISTICS OF METAL POWDERS

Some characteristics on which behaviour of metal powder depends are described below-
1. Particle shape & size distribution:-
The shape of particles depends mainly on the method of production of powders, spheroidal
shaped particles have excellent sintering property and irregular shaped particles are good for
Moulding.Mostly 100 micron size powder are used.
2. Density:-
True density is mass per unit volume of the solid material apparent density is defined as the
mass of loose powder per unit actual volume filled by the powder it depends on particle
shape, size distribution powders with high apparent density require shorter compressive strike
to produce a compact of given density and size.
3. Flow Rate
It is defined as the time required for a measured quantity of powder to flow out of a standard
orifice flow rate should be high to obtain high production rate.
4. Compressibility and Compression Ratio
Both depends upon shape size and size distribution of particles compressibility is defined as
the ratio of initial volume of the powder (Un pressed volume) to final volume green strength
to powder also known as mechanical strength of compressed part.

Page5 of 9
By:- Shashi Ranjan Prasad singh
 PROCESSING OF POWDERS:-
Processing of powder has been classified in two groups-
(A) PRIMARY PROCESS

1. Mixing and Blending of Powder

Mixing means the intermixing of powders of two or more materials. Intermixing of a powder and binder or
intermixing of a powder and lubricants. The mixing and blending of metal powder is done under controlled
condition to avoid contamination and deterioration. It fulfil following purposes.
• It produces a uniform distribution of particle shape and size.
• It allows different metal to be mixed to obtain specific physical property.
• It improves metal powder interaction by addition of lubricants (e.g stearic acid, Zinc stearate

in proportion of 0.25 to 0.5% by weight) to the powder improves the flow characteristics of
the powder. Such blends result in reduced friction between the metal particles, improved
flow of powder metal into dies and longer die life.
• Co-combine metallic and non metallic powder.

Page6 of 9
By:- Shashi Ranjan Prasad singh
 2. Compacting or Briquetting

The mixed powders are compacted in die to form the size and shape of the desired part, parts
fo produced are known as green compact. The density after compaction is called green
density. Depends upon the compaction pressure, dimensions of the compacted parts and
powder hardness. The compacting is carried out at room temp. in dies. The die cavity is
filled with required amount of mixed powder for uniform distribution of pressure two
punches are generally used one from top and other from bottom side of powder. The
green compact expand slightly when taken out of die to elastic recovery this expansion
depends of the pressure and extend of plastic deformation in powder particles.

3. Pre-Sintering (Not done when machining is not required)

It is defined as a process in which green compact is heated to temperature below final sintering
temperature to increase the strength. It also removes the lubricant and binders added during
blending. After this the final sintering operation is performed.

4. Sintering

Sintering is the process of heating the material to a temp. below the melting temp. but high enough
to allow bonding or fusion of individual particles under protective atmosphere prevent oxidation.
Continuous sintering furnace are used which have 3 chambers-
• A chamber to volatize (easily becoming goes or dangerous) the lubricants in the green
compact in order to improve bond strength and prevent cracking it. It is called brunt off
chamber. It slowly raises the temp. in a controlled manner.
Page7 of 9
By:- Shashi Ranjan Prasad singh
 • A high temperature chamber for sintering for bonding b/w the powder particles the time
during the second stage must be sufficient to produce the desired density and final properties.
• A cooling chamber.
B) SECONDARY OPERATIONS
These operation are carried out to obtain desired dimensional tolerances, physical property
improve its strength, hardness and wear resistance etc. finishing operations are often perform
after sintering for better dimensional accuracy different machining operations are performed.
Heat treating the sintered part will improve its hardness, strength and wear resistance.
Finishing operation is perform to improve the surface characteristics of part.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a general term for all technologies that produce parts by layer
addition of material at the micron level, to achieve the required shape, besides of metal removal
technique which is traditional subtractive process. During research period, AM the layer by layer
manufacturing terminology has been standardised by the American society for testing and materials
(ASTM) committee F42 on additive layer technologies.

In the beginning AM technologies were restricted because of commonly accepted leading name
Rapid prototyping (RP) for the production of parts and prototypes, which was the term used for
many years to describe all layer additive manufacturing processes. Advancement in the material,
process and system hardware cleared that the parts could be manufactured with an adequate
mechanical property to let for further applications. This allowed the production of end use models
with layer additive technologies, so rapid manufacturing (RM) was adopted which distinguish the
functional nature of the models produced from the prior RP parts and prototypes. Recently AM is
used generally and RM and RP are only use to illustrate the particular application of AM
technologies.

Principles of Additive Manufacturing

AM technologies fabricate models by fusing, sintering or polymerisation of materials in
predetermined layers with no needs of tools. AM makes possible the manufacture of complex
geometries including internal part detail that are approximately not possible to manufacture using
machining and moulding processes, because process does not require predetermined tool paths,
draft angles and under cuts.

AM the layers of a model are formed by slicing CAD data with professional software. All AM
system work on the same principle; however, layer thickness depend upon parameters and machine
being used and thickness of layer range from 10µm up to 200µm. Layers are clearly visible on the
part surface in AM operation, which controls the quality of final product. The relation between
thickness of layer and surface orientation is known as staircase effect. However, thinner the layer is
the longer the processing time and higher the part resolution.

Layers in AM are built up at the top of the previous one in z axis. After layer gets processed the
work platform is dropped down by the single layer thickness in z axis and the fresh material layer is
recoated differently for number of other methods. In resin based system traversing edge flatten the
resin, in powder based system deposited powder is spread using roller or wiper, in some system the
material is deposited through a nozzle which deposits the required material. Because recoating time
is even longer than the layer processing time. For that sake multiple parts are building together in
the time of single material recoating build. Different software’s are available to position and orient
part so that maximum number of parts can be built together. Available software’s are VISCAM RP
and Smart Space used in MAGICS.

Page8 of 9
By:- Shashi Ranjan Prasad singh
Some delicate parts produced through AM technologies need a support structure to hold the part in
work platform during the build process. All AM machine uses different support structure that are
designed from specific material for effective use of build parts. Commonly used support structures
are thin small pointed teeth to minimising the part contact so that they can be removed easily with
the hand tools.

Page9 of 9
By:- Shashi Ranjan Prasad singh