Advanced Processing › Powder Metallurgy

 

Many metal items of commerce are now made using powder metallurgy processes. Powder metals can be formed into shapes using many processes including die pressing, isopress forming, extrusion, hipping, and others. Pressed shapes are then sintered to bond the particles and increase densities. Powder metallurgy processing can be much more cost-effective than fabrication processes that start from melted and wrought stock such as rods, bars, and plates, since much of the machining costs can be eliminated. The use of metal powders also affords the ability to mix powders of different elemental compositions to make materials with unique compositions and properties. New alloys can also be introduced as starting powders.

The Materials Processing Group (MPG) of ORNL has over 30 years experience in processing and forming of materials using powder metallurgy methods. Our experience extends from common aluminum alloys to experimental powders for applications such as hard cutting tools. Recently ORNL has been the beta tester for Armstrong titanium powders produced by ITP (International Titanium Inc). ORNL has also used the powder metallurgy platform to extend to coatings work using bulk amorphous alloys to produce laser-bonded nano-crystalline coatings on rock cutting wheels. These cutting wheels with ORNL hard coatings are now being tested in a number of industrial tunnel drilling sites. Future-work for the MPG will include rolling powder metal compositions of lightweight alloys into foil and sheet products using custom rolling mills at ORNL. MPG also has in-house computer simulation or modeling to aide in the prediction of materials behavior during pressing and other processing steps.

Contacts:

KIGGANS, Jim kiggansjojr@ornl.gov 865.574.8863
MONTGOMERY, Fred C. montgomeryfc@ornl.gov 865.576.8808
MUTH, Thomas R. muthtr@ornl.gov 865.574.5264
NUNN, Stephen D. nunnsd@ornl.gov 865.576.1668
SABAU, Adrian S. sabaua@ornl.gov 865.241.5145
HARPER, David C.- Technical Professional harperdc@ornl.gov 865.574.7363

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