Award: Award of Distinction
Year: 2010
Category: Industrial Motors/Controls & Hydraulics

Description:
The award was given to a rotating machine counterweight used in a refrigeration compressor for truck trailers. Formed to a density range of 6.7 to 7.0 g/cm³, the PM steel counterweight has a tensile strength of 47,000 psi and 57–60 HRB hardness. It replaced a two-piece design that required machining the bolt and threaded holes in addition to separate tooling and presses for both parts. The customer conducted fatigue and vibration testing and reports double the fatigue performance compared to the previous two-piece version. What’s more, assembly of those two pieces required the use of thread-locking fluid, which contains volatile organics; eliminating this fluid through the one-piece design is an obvious sustainability benefit of PM.