Global freight volume is about 880000 tons of powder in 2003, the U.S. accounted for 51%, European 18%, Japan 13%, 18% in other countries and regions. More than 90% of the total iron powder of the powder. Since 2001, the world iron market continues to grow, increased almost 20% in four years' time.

Automobile industry is still the biggest driving force of the development of the powder metallurgy industry and the largest user. In increasing production of cars on the one hand, on the other hand, the amount of powder metallurgy parts in a single car not period is also increasing. North American average highest dosage of powder metallurgy parts, every car is 19.5 kg, 9 kg on average in Europe and Japan to 8 kg on average. Due to the rapid development of modern automobile industry, China has a large of powder metallurgy parts market prospects, has become the focus of many international powder metallurgy enterprises.

Powder metallurgy iron-based parts on the car is mainly used in engine, transmission system, ABS system, ignition system and so on. Two big development trend in the car, respectively, in order to reduce energy consumption and environmental protection; Main technology is the use of advanced engine system and lightweight.

Europe for automobile exhaust filter for powder metallurgy porous material and provides a large market. Under the condition of the engine working, powder metallurgy, metal porous materials than ceramic material has better performance and cost advantages.

Tool material is powder metallurgy industry another important product, which is particularly important carbide. At present, the development of the manufacturing industry in the direction of 3 a, that is, Agility, adaptability (Agility), Adaptivity and predictability (Anticipativity). This requires processing tool itself is more sharp, better rigidity, toughness is higher; Processing material to expand the range of Lv Ge, magnesium alloy, titanium alloy, and ceramics, etc.; Dimensional accuracy requirements are higher; Processing requires lower cost; To minimize the environmental impact to, dry processing ratio is bigger. These new requirements to speed up the development of powder metallurgy tooling materials. Carbide grain size (< 200 nm = and super coarse grain size (> 6 um); coating technology development very fast, CVD, PVD, PCVD technology is increasingly perfect, coating types are many, from the commonly used DTiCN/Al2O3 / TiN to CVD PCBN (polycrystalline cubic BN) and PVD TiAIN, Al2O3, cBN (cubic BN) and SiMAlON etc, meet the processing needs.

The development of information industry for powder metallurgy industry also provides a new opportunity. Japan's electronics industry with powder metallurgy products has reached $4.3 a year, including heat sink materials accounted for 23%, luminous and extremely materials accounted for 30%. The former mainly includes the cooling materials, such as Si/SiC, Cu - Mo, Cu - W, Al - SiC, AlN and Cu/diamond material such as; The latter mainly includes the tungsten and molybdenum materials.

Metal powder porous materials

Metal powder porous material has a very wide range of applications such as lightweight structural materials, high temperature filter unit, membrane separation, etc. May be the biggest market of diesel engine smoke filtration unit. Germany's Fraunhofer research institute developed a hollow metal ball preparation technology, on the polymer substrate coated with metal powder slurry, then coated adhesive and polymer matrix, the final form with hollow structure of the metal sphere. The diameter of the sphere can clump of 1 mm to 8 mm. The preparation of hollow steel ball density of 0.3 g/cm3.

Cemented carbide

Nanocrystalline and gradient structure are two key direction of the carbide. Nanocrystalline materials including grain growth control and the preparation of nanometer powder. Gradient structure alloys including process and structure of the relationship. Combine nanocrystals and gradient structure can be a very good direction, can be implemented at a more micro level of performance is adjustable. Cemented carbide of high hardness, poor workability, so the preparation complex shape of small and medium-sized injection molding part is the development trend, but its lead is still under the control of the technical maturity. Carbide other aspects including home, rare earth and alloy element fracture toughness and reliability characterization, etc.

The light metal alloy powder

Automotive lightweighting light metals such as aluminum, magnesium, titanium material provides a broad application prospect. Aluminum alloy powder can be used in the car parts is very much, but Al - Si alloy due to specific strength, specific stiffness and good abrasion resistance, low thermal expansion coefficient, are likely to take the lead in large-scale application in oil pump gear. From the perspective of industrialization, the optimization study of powder metallurgy of aluminium alloy preparation process is more important. Is another research focus in the aluminum alloy composite materials, including traditional Al/SiC and Al/C, Al/BN, Al/Ti (C, N), and the emergence of new carbon nanotubes reinforced aluminum alloy. High strength aluminum alloy powder is closely related to the rapid solidification technology. Through the composition design, in the pure aluminum matrix line group to join intermetallic compounds in yuan, can preparation high strength, high toughness, high heat stability of aluminum alloy. This material at room temperature strength greater than 600 mpa, the elongation rate more than 10%, at 400 ℃ and good thermal stability, fatigue limit is 2 times of forging of aluminum alloy.

Magnesium alloy density smaller, and its application prospects may be better, but it is still under study. Using rapid solidification method and is an important method of preparation of high performance magnesium alloy powder. At present the technology has not too much of an issue in terms of safety, material performance is far higher than was prepared by casting alloy.

Application of titanium alloy in automobile is mainly cost problem, and titanium alloy powder is the main obstacle to high performance low cost titanium powder. British QinetiQ Ltd developed a shop deoxidization technology (EDO), can be batch production titanium powder. This technology with traditional titanium sponge as the raw material of hydrogenation dehydrogenation process is completely different. It is a kind of similar to the molten salt electrolytic method, for TiO2 cathode, graphite as the anode, the migration of the TiO2 anode in the electrolysis process, the consumption of anode carbon CO, formed at the cathode by titanium powder. Titanium powder of the oxygen content is between 0.035% ~ 0.4%. Using this technique can also be easily prepared all kinds of titanium alloy powder. Because of the sensitivity to the atmosphere and impurities, the difficulty of sintering is technology of titanium alloy powder, usually with hot isostatic pressing or subsequent hot working. By adding the eutectic formation groups and rare earth elements can significantly improve powder sintering density of titanium alloy, the mechanical property also can reach the level forging of titanium alloy. This series of work will greatly promote the application of titanium alloy in automobile machine key components.

I think for the above applications of powder metallurgy powder metallurgy technology will be on the development and manufacturing of porous foam metal give full play to its great advantages, at the same time using mixing proportion powder is easy to control, in which you can add specific rare earths, has the specific function, so as to develop a variety of functional materials.

Porous foam metal is a certain number is contained in a metal substrate, to a certain size of aperture, porosity of holes must be metal material. Due to its special structure, therefore has many special performance. As a structural material, it has light weight, high strength characteristics; As a functional material, it is porous, vibration, damping and sound-absorbing, sound insulation, heat dissipation and absorption of impact energy, electromagnetic shielding, and other physical properties, so in general industrial field and high technology field at home and abroad have got more and more widely used. Japan on the application of foam metal made a series of achievement, in it in the production of train power room, factory noise devices. As a result of greater than 800 Hz frequency noise have a thorough knowledge of the noise elimination ability, can use it to sound equipment of the air compressor production, also can use it to produce male sound proof walls, sound proof of the factory wall, mechanical sound screen, door silencer, affect the chamber and the need to reduce the noise circumstance and so on. In the areas of defense weapons and equipment also can make torpedo sound insulation board, cut fish the noise of thunder. The use of its vibration, damping performance, do a buffer, absorbing vibration, such as spacecraft landing gear, elevator transportation safety mat, all kinds of packaging boxes, especially air transport boxes, machine tool lathe bed, base, the reduction of vibration and noise of gear damping ring, high-speed grinding machine can suck lining. Using Ti or Co - Cr alloy foam and the body's biological capacity, alternative materials can be used in human bones or teeth, Mg foam is expected as an artificial bone material.

In the present metal materials, we have not yet developed at the same time with same elastic plastic and metal metal, the strength of the metal atomic spacing and hesitation interaction, we have been unable to overcome this difficulty. Imagine using powder metallurgy technology, qualitative quantitative in the powder join some elements (such as rare earth elements), and keep the material particles appropriate spacing, when receive the certain pressure to reduce shrinkage of spacing to make material changes, when pressure is removed, the material and will return to its original form.