Abstract
There are two major trends of PM material development. The first is PM products application to the structural parts of automobiles which were originally made of conventional cast iron, carbon steel or alloyed steel.The PM materials were improved based on the alloyed material design, optimum manufacturing process and conditions to obtain comparable mechanical properties with them. The second is unique PM materials having heat and wear resistant properties utilizing PM advantage of flexibility in alloy elements and microstructures. It is understood that there is getting no economical advantage of the PM materials for the former application unless any further new development concept implemented.
In this paper, existing concerns for PM materials to be more widely applied to the automobiles and future trend of their development are mentioned focusing on iron base materials.
