Aluminium Powder Metallurgy in Perspective

Abstract

The considerable upsurge of interest in the development of PM aluminium alloys in the past 10 years is examined against the background of commercial aluminium powder production. Although it is likely that PM will remain a relatively small but highly specialized proportion of the total consumption of aluminium powder, which has numerous large scale uses, it is expected that it will grow in its share of the total of PM metals. The pressure for these developments has come largely from the potential consuming industries. It has created a need for radical departures from the more orthodox powder pressing and sintering techniques. It has produced more highly developed powder making processes and a much wider range of subsequent fabricating techniques. Rapid solidification technology, metal matrix composites, and mechanical alloying, for example, combined with powder extrusion, rolling, and forging, are presenting opportunities for creating new alloys and forms of material with tailormade properties more likely to close the widening gap between design and material suitability for future generations of components for the aerospace, automobile, and other industries. PM/0317