What Will Be the Future of Powder Metallurgy?

Traditionally, powder metallurgy has been based on two major industrial sectors – ferrous precision parts and hardmetals. Both of them relied heavily on the automotive industry, with focus on internal combustion engines. Today, there is an increasing trend towards alternative drivetrain systems, and powder metallurgy faces the challenge to find new applications to replace those lost with the decrease of classical internal combustion drives. In this presentation it is shown that the main strength of powder metallurgy lies in its enormous flexibility regarding materials, geometries, processing and properties. This enables PM to adapt itself to changing requirements in a changing industrial environment. Examples given are PM parts in alternative drivetrain systems, new alloying concepts and processing routes offering distinct advantages. With hardmetals, innovative microstructures as well as sophisticated coatings offer increased lifetime, applications ranging from metalworking to rockdrilling and concrete cutting. A particularly wide area is found in functional materials which range from components for high power switches to such for fuel cells. Soft and hard magnets are accessible by PM with particularly good properties, PM having in part exclusivity in that respect, such as for NdFeB superhard magnets as well as soft magnetic composites (SMCs). Metal injection moulding (MIM) is gaining further ground, e.g. in the medical area which is a fast-growing field, due to demographic effects. Finally, most additive manufacturing techniques are powder based, and here, the knowledge in powder handling and processing available in the PM community is essential for obtaining stable processes and reliable products. Conclusively it can be stated that PM is on the way to fully exploit its potential far beyond its traditional areas of applications.