Powdered metal parts are made using powder metallurgy. They have various applications in different industries, including automotive, aerospace, medical, and industrial. In manufacturing, they are typically used for gears, bearings, bushings, cams, and other precision components.
One of the main advantages of powdered metal parts is they can be produced more efficiently than traditional cast or machined parts. They also can be created in large quantities, with consistent properties and performance.
There are many advantages to using powder metallurgy, but is it the best solution for your project? This article will explore the pros and cons of powder metallurgy and the key considerations in choosing powdered metal parts for your manufacturing requirements.
Things To Remember When Choosing Powdered Metal Parts for Manufacturing
There are several factors to consider when choosing powdered metal parts to ensure that your components are high-quality and perform according to design expectations. These include the following:
Material Compatibility
Not all metals can be treated using powder metallurgy. Therefore, it is important to confirm whether the material you select is workable. The best materials for producing powdered metal components are nickel, cobalt, titanium, iron, steel, Stainless Steel, copper, bronze, and aluminum.
Precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, and palladium are also used in powder metallurgy. They have excellent electrical conductivity and corrosion resistance. Further, they are non-toxic, making them suitable for electronic applications.
Mechanical Properties
The mechanical characteristics of powdered metal parts — such as strength, ductility, and wear resistance — may not always meet the application’s requirements. Choosing a powdered metal part with unsuitable properties can lead to failure or reduced performance in your components. However, PM can cost-effectively meet most of these requirements or 90% of like wrought material
Design Flexibility
Although powder metallurgy enables the production of parts with intricate geometries and custom holes, keyways, or stepped cores, it may not always meet the application’s design specifications. Therefore, when selecting a powdered metal component, it is best to know all your project requirements and decide on them.
Tolerance and Finish
Powder metallurgy may or may not be able to produce parts with very tight tolerances or that require a high surface finish. Thus, ensure that the powdered metal part’s dimensional tolerance and surface finish meet your application’s requirements.
Cost
Powder metallurgy can be a cost-effective manufacturing method. Still, it is important to consider the investment necessary for the powders, handling and processing, and the total cost of production before going through this manufacturing technique. Tooling is low-cost compared to other tooled processes.
What To Look For in a Powder Metal Distributor
There are several industry-specific characteristics and qualifications to look for to ensure that you are working with a reputable and reliable powder metal molder. Among them are the following:
Highly Recommended by Industry Leaders
A supplier with a good reputation in the industry is likely to be reliable and provide high-quality products and services. You can ask other manufacturers in your industry for recommendations or research suppliers online to get an idea of their track records. Typically, a dependable and experienced powdered metal supplier can also provide references from other established manufacturing companies.
Excellent Customer Service
Look for a distributor who can provide technical support and guidance throughout the process, from material selection to production and delivery.
Timely Delivery and Handling
The manufacturer you work with should be able to provide the materials you need promptly so that you can meet production deadlines. Late deliveries can cause delays in production and lead to lost revenue. On the other hand, when goods are supplied on time, they are easily managed and distributed.
High Safety Standards
A supplier that adheres to the highest safety standards will ensure that the materials they provide are reliable. This can help protect your employees and customers and reduce liability risks.
Get Your High-Quality Powdered Metal Parts From Allied Sinterings!
Allied Sinterings understands the importance of working with a reliable powdered metal supplier. We adhere to the highest industry standards, safety, and quality to maintain our brand’s impeccable reputation and ensure customer satisfaction.
Contact us for all your powdered metal components needs!
Manufacturers are always looking for an advantage in quality, cost, and production time – all to provide better services and product options for their target markets. As a result, they often compare side to side but look outside the box when they crave innovation or a more cost-effective solution for their manufacturing needs. One of them is through the use of powdered metal products.
One of the primary drivers of the structural components business and the most common justification for selecting powder metallurgy is the cost-effectiveness of the final product. These and more are just a few reasons powdered metal products stand out in the manufacturing industry.
Alloys that have undergone one of several procedures to become a fine, grain-like powder are known as powdered metals. Often made of stainless steel, brass, copper, iron, or bronze, these materials can be alloyed to produce the appropriate features and attributes for a certain application.
With the right sintering, soft powder metal can be shaped into various shapes. In addition, the sintering process can increase the magnetism of powder metal, which is a common choice of material for items with magnetic qualities. Solid metal components manufactured from powdered metal are used in various industries. Applications in building and construction, lawn and garden, computer, electronics, hardware, jewelry production, and automobile manufacturing all benefit from powder metallurgy.
Tips for Choosing the Best Powdered Metal Products
The powder metallurgy process offers several advantages. These factors impact part-to-part homogeneity, enhanced product quality, shape and material flexibility, application variety, and cost-effectiveness. In addition, powdered metals are frequently utilized in alloy production, lubrication, and corrosion resistance.
Industry Application
For what purpose do you require the metal powder? Metal powders are utilized in a range of industries and applications. Of course, you will need to purchase a different metal powder for cosmetics than a component manufacturing application. Metal powders are frequently used in the following industries:
Paint and coatings industry
Electronics
Automotive
Cosmetics
Printing
Type of Processing Method
There are numerous alternatives for molding the metal powder to meet specific needs or incorporating it into the desired end product. It goes without saying that a metal powder used in a 3D printing process must meet different requirements than a powder intended for use in a traditional sintering application. Therefore, it is imperative to carefully analyze the type of processing involved.
Consider whether additives will be needed when purchasing metal powder, and if so, which ones. It is essential to ensure that the various raw materials are compatible and that there are no risks associated with their combination.
Key Information About Powdered Metal Type
A provider of powder metal components might have expertise and experience in the area. But if they can’t provide details on their physical characteristics, you can look for someone else who can. Suppliers offering material factors like particle size, chemistry, flowability, and sphericity are critical for the successful product selection of powder metal. You can learn more about their powder’s behavior from these details during and after manufacturing and production.
Timely and Expert Support from Your Powdered Metal Supplier
The promise of excellent, individualized service is another feature to consider when choosing a powder metal product and supplier. Even if the provider has already completed a project, maintaining open lines of communication between you and the supplier ensures that the latter will always be available to address any questions you may have concerning your purchased powdered metal. In addition, if your supplier continues to work and communicate timely, any material-related issues can be quickly rectified.
Custom Engineered Powdered Metal Products From Allied Sinterings
If you are looking for the best supplier of powder metal components, you can contact us at Allied Sinterings. We are a company based in Danbury, CT, that provides first-class small powder metal products, including gears and other miniature components, to businesses in the automotive, industrial, aerospace, medicine, and consumer goods industries.
Contact us to experience specialized and customized powder metal solutions for your manufacturing needs.
As electronic devices, medical devices, automobiles, and other products adopt smaller and more complex forms, precision fabricated components become more critical. To fit tight spaces and complex geometries, these miniature components must achieve a level of precision not possible through conventional manufacturing. Today, precision fabrication and manufacturing are the most in-demand sectors of industrial manufacturing.
The Difference Between Manufactured and Fabricated Parts
Fabrication and manufacturing are two industrial terms associated with producing a finished product. Although the two processes are often referred to interchangeably, they describe different types of processes.
Fabrication is a process of constructing products from several standardized parts or subassemblies. A good example is metal fabrication, which forms metal structures through multiple processes, including cutting, bending, and assembling. Oftentimes, fabrication processes utilize computer-aided designs (CAD) and computer numerical control (CNC) technology to achieve these multiple assemblies with greater precision and faster turnaround times.
In contrast, manufacturing involves converting raw materials into finished products. Manufacturing leverages machines, tools, and chemical processing to change materials from their raw form to ready-to-use goods, from start to finish. Examples of industries that perform manufacturing processes are the apparel, chemical processing, electronics, food, leather, printing, and lumber sectors.
Benefits of High Precision
High-precision manufacturing is a subset of manufacturing that specializes in producing parts with tight tolerances, often of just a few micrometers. Usually, the tolerance grade of precision machining is IT5, with an accuracy of 10-0.1 μm and surface roughness not more than 0.1 μm. The following are some of the advantages of high precision manufacturing:
Reduced turnaround time: High precision manufacturing can significantly improve turnaround times. You can invest in precision machines and skilled technicians to cut down on the number of destinations your products must travel to before final delivery. A contract manufacturer can handle these responsibilities in-house, ensuring you receive high-quality products on time.
Minimized human error: Because high precision manufacturing utilizes intelligent, accurate machinery, they eliminate the risk of costly human errors. Unlike humans, computers can follow the same set of predefined operations without errors or inconsistencies.
Easy prototyping: High precision manufacturing can help you produce one-off prototypes to full-scale production runs. This flexibility allows you to test and refine prototypes throughout multiple phases of the production process, and you can adjust to changes in niche markets.
Uses of Fabricated Components
Allied Sinterings, Inc. specializes in manufacturing miniature powdered and sintered metal components. One of the markets that relies on these precision components is the medical industry, particularly for making medical devices and equipment. As this industry pioneers breakthrough technology in microsurgery, microelectronics, biotechnology, and instrumentation, precision components must meet increasingly tighter tolerance and safety standards.
Our powdered metal materials include stainless steel, brass, nickel steel, copper steel, carbon steel, iron, bronze, and more. Specific components we produce include:
Gearboxes
Gears
Medical dispensing devices and diagnostic equipment
Planetary drives
Pinions
Cams
Sprockets
Retainers
Custom Miniature Parts from Allied Sinterings, Inc.
Allied Sinterings is a leading manufacturer of small powered metal products, including miniature components for medical equipment. From our ISO 9001:2015 certified facility, we fabricate precision components for the medical, automotive, aerospace, consumer goods, and telecom industries. Contact us today to learn how we can serve you.
With the electric vehicle (EV) industry expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 29% over the next decade, there has been a significant increase in demand for actuators and other motion control components for electric vehicles. Powdered and sintered metals offer improved magnetic performance, lightweight, and reduced noise vibrations, making them an excellent option for enhancing the performance of various EV components.
Challenges of the Electric Vehicle Industry
EV engines deviate from internal combustion engines in some significant ways. For instance, electric motors are far more compact. Additionally, rotation in electric motors is restricted just to the central axis, thus naturally reducing engine vibrations. This creates new challenges for EV automakers. For example:
All electric automotive components need to be lightweight and have better thermal management to increase fuel efficiency.
Actuated auxiliary system components must be far more compact.
Noise vibration harshness (NVH) levels must be reduced even more than usual to address driver expectations and comfort.
While challenging, these scenarios present automakers with opportunities to push innovation and rethink standard manufacturing expectations. The use of powdered metal components offers:
Sintering uses pressure and heat to form powdered metal materials into a 80-95% solid mass without fully melting the metal. As the metal granules are pressed together, they begin to bond together the irregular particles to form a “green” compact. These compacts interconnected particles are then sintered to melt the particles together giving the component strength. Powdered metallurgy processes afford the ability to create small net shape parts with complex geometries while generating little waste.
Allied Sinterings, Inc. offers numerous varieties of powdered steel for creating small and miniature parts using the sintering process. This blog will highlight the two most common steel grades we utilize in this manufacturing process – stainless steel and nickel steel.
Advantages of Stainless Steel Components
A steel alloy containing more than 10.5% chromium is considered stainless steel. As one of the most widely used materials, stainless steel is a common base metal for powdered metal processes. The material offers numerous properties that make it an ideal material for producing powdered miniature components. Powdered stainless steel is available in multiple 300 series and 400 series grades.
Some of the beneficial properties of powdered stainless steel include:
Corrosion resistance. The chromium within the stainless steel alloy reacts with oxygen to create a protective film on the surface of the metal that protects against corrosive elements.
Improved strength. Stainless steel offers good strength and can support significant weight.
Durability. Stainless steel’s high corrosion resistance, excellent strength, and broad temperature range make it highly durable in an expansive range of environments.
Highly recyclable. As a 100% recyclable material, stainless steel is the most recycled material in the world. Demand remains high enough to outpace the availability of recycled materials, but about 60% of all new stainless steel is generated from recycled material.
Wide temperature range. The functional temperature range of stainless steel varies widely based on the specific alloy. Some austenitic alloys used in natural gas applications perform well in temperatures as low as -161°C. Many common grades of stainless steel will maintain their oxidation resistance under exposure to temperatures as high as 870°C, and some specialty alloys can tolerate even higher temperatures.
Sintered stainless steel serves many different types of applications. The medical industry uses powdered metallurgy to develop precision stainless steel parts for critical medical devices. Automotive and industrial equipment often incorporate small, sintered parts, such as gears, as crucial components of larger products. The growing telecom industry turns to sintered stainless steel miniature components for highly complex devices.
The Benefits of Nickel-Steel Alloys
Adding nickel to steel alloys provides a variety of benefits, including:
Good formability. The ductile nature of nickel-steel alloys makes them highly formable, which can be beneficial for powdered metals that need additional finishing or machining after the sintering process.
Improved strength/toughness. Adding nickel to a steel alloy imparts enhanced strength into the metal while improving resistance to cracking.
Good weldability. Nickel improves the weldability of steel by decreasing brittleness and improving welding bonds.
Resistance to high operating temperatures. Nickel improves the stability of the protective oxide layer in steel, which helps the layer better tolerate prolonged exposure to high temperatures.
Nickel steel and nickel stainless steel alloys see broad usage because of their versatility and availability. The pharmaceutical and chemical industries use sintered nickel alloy components within a variety of process equipment. Applications concerned with cleanliness, such as medical or food and beverage facilities, often utilize sintered nickel steel alloy components for their hygienic properties. The aerospace industry prefers nickel alloys for miniature parts for their high strength and ability to operate in a wide temperature range.
Custom Miniature Parts from Allied Sinterings
Stainless steel and nickel steel alloys have become very popular in powdered metallurgy, though selecting the appropriate type of metal for your needs can be difficult. Your sintering provider can help you determine the powdered metal material best suited to your design and specifications.
At Allied Sinterings, we specialize in custom miniature parts for commercial, industrial, and consumer markets. Using state-of-the-art technology in our environmentally controlled facility, our highly experienced technicians can handle virtually any custom powdered metal request, from assemblies and sub-assemblies to precision components for medical devices and process equipment. We can manage low- or high-volume production, offer short lead times on orders over 500 pieces, and can support rush orders when needed.
To see how we can support your project, please contact us today.
An Overview on Powdered Metal Parts & the Powder Metallurgy Process
Powdered metals are alloys processed into a fine, grain-like powder through one of several processes. Primarily made from stainless steel, brass, copper, iron, or bronze, these metals can be blended with other alloys to achieve the desired material properties and characteristics for a particular application. Offering greater flexibility in material usage and mechanical properties, powdered metal parts can be highly customized and easily reproduced while yielding high-strength, cost-effective components.
Manufacturing High Strength Parts
Powder metallurgy (PM) refers to the manufacturing process by which powdered metals or metal blends are formed to desired specifications through a unique combination of heat and compression to create parts and components that offer improved strength over traditionally forged alternatives. The process is shorter than other manufacturing techniques, with primary steps including the following:
Metals are powdered through solid-state reduction, atomization, electrolysis, or chemical treatments like oxide reduction and thermal decomposition.
Powders are blended with other metals, alloying agents, and lubricants to reduce friction and increase fluidity while yielding a homogeneous mix that will be fed into a rigid toolset for processing.
The metal blend is compacted into the appropriate geometry using dies, punches, hydraulic presses, or other consolidation measures.
Compacted pieces are sintered in a controlled atmosphere using extremely high temperatures to metallurgically bond the particulates.
Parts are subjected to secondary operations depending on the requirements of their final application.
The PM process is recognized as being environmentally friendly as it produces harmless bi-products of nitrogen and hydrogen while also limiting production waste by utilizing more than 97% of the material that enters the process.
Heat Treatments & Finishing Options
After sintering, parts may undergo additional heat treatments or finishing to increase material strength and hardness, improve corrosion resistance, boost part tolerance, enhance surface finish, and more. Secondary operations include things such as:
Heat treating: quenching and tempering, steam treating, furnace brazing, etc.
Machining: drilling and tapping, turning, milling, or grinding
Impregnation: oil or resin
Finishing: deburring, tumbling, burnishing, coating or plating, welding, etc.
The Benefits of Powdered Metal Manufacturing
The PM process offers a host of advantages over traditional metal manufacturing practices like forging or die-casting. These benefits include:
Cost-effectiveness: PM reduces energy consumption, improves material utilization, and contains fewer steps than other manufacturing approaches, all of which help lower the impact on the bottom line by trimming costs up to 70%.
Higher degree of customization: From the creation of unique alloy and lubricant blends designed to meet the material properties of a specific application to the ability to easily produce complex geometries like irregular curves and radial projections, key-ways, splines, counter bores, bosses, axial projections and more, PM allows for greater part customization than other metal manufacturing methods.
Minimal machining requirements: With a superior ability to achieve close tolerances, less machining is necessary to produce a final product.
Superior surface finish: Net-shaping and tolerance adherence contribute to a reduction in machining needs, which in turn improves surface finish.
Repetitive accuracy: The process is suited to moderate- to high-volume production with excellent repetitive accuracy.
Materials can be further tailored: Secondary operations allow components to undergo any additional treatments necessary to draw out the material properties most critical for an application’s success, like ductility or hardness.
Custom Powdered Metal Parts From Allied Sinterings
Powdered metal parts provide many advantages that improve part quality and uniformity, shorten production times, and cut down project cost over other manufacturing methods. Allowing for extensive customization and providing repetitive accuracy, powdered metal parts are appropriate in various applications.
At Allied Sinterings, Inc., we apply state-of-the-art powered metal technology to the manufacturing of assemblies, sub-assemblies, medical devices, tools, circuit breakers, and more using custom-blended and brass powders, copper-infiltrated materials, steel, and copper steel. With three sintering furnaces and 42 high-precision presses, an in-house tool room, and a complete tumbling/finishing department, our environmentally controlled facility can manufacture precision parts with outside diameters up to 1.25″, heights up to 1″, and tolerances of ±0.001″.
For more information on custom powdered metal parts or our PM capabilities, contact us today.
Allied Sinterings, Inc. specializes in manufacturing miniature powdered and sintered metal components. One of the markets that relies on these precision components is the medical industry, particularly for making medical devices and equipment. As this industry pioneers breakthrough technology in microsurgery, microelectronics, biotechnology, and instrumentation, precision components must meet increasingly tighter tolerance and safety standards. 
Nickel steel and nickel stainless steel alloys see broad usage because of their versatility and availability. The pharmaceutical and chemical industries use sintered nickel alloy components within a variety of process equipment. Applications concerned with cleanliness, such as medical or food and beverage facilities, often utilize sintered nickel steel alloy components for their hygienic properties. The aerospace industry prefers nickel alloys for miniature parts for their high strength and ability to operate in a wide temperature range.
An Overview on Powdered Metal Parts & the Powder Metallurgy Process
