Powder metallurgy products cover a wide range of applications and are used in the automotive, electrical, business machine, agricultural machine, sewing machine and other industries.
First, the powder metallurgy market, especially recent shipments of iron powder, copper powder, low alloy steel powder, and stainless steel powder, and production amounts of various powder metallurgy products in Japan, are introduced.
Second, the history of development in FM parts, new types of raw powder, e.g. high compressibility iron powder, good campactibility iron powder, segregation-free iron powder, high strength low alloy steel powder, rapidly solidified aluminum alloy powder, and fine alloy powder, and recently developed FM parts manufacturing techniques, are outlined.
Although the Japanese powder metallurgy industry felt the effects of economical recession in the early 90s, the outlook for the future is very positive, and the FM industry is expected to show renewed growth, because the applications of FM parts range over many industries, and various types of new raw powders, FM materials and FM manufacturig techniques are now being developed.