PowderMet          AMPM          Special Interest

003 - Tension Testing of Powder Metallurgy (PM) Copper Steels
W. Brian James, FAPMI, PMtech

With the introduction of the minimum strength approach in the 1984-1985 edition of MPIF Standard 35, Materials Standards for PM Structural Parts the listed values for PM copper steels were changed. The yield strengths of the as-sintered materials were increased across the board by about 70 MPa (10,000 psi) while the UTS values were decreased slightly compared with those in the 1972 edition of the standard. In the 1984-1985 edition the ultimate strength values for FC-0205HT were kept the same as those published in 1972 while those for FC-0208HT remained the same for densities of 6.8 g/cm3 and higher, and increased slightly for densities of 6.1 and 6.4 g/cm3. Subsequent testing coordinated by Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) as part of the U.S. Navy Manufacturing and Science Technology Program indicated that the yield strength values for the as-sintered FC-0205 and FC-0208 materials agreed with the 1984-1985 values. However, the UTS results for heat-treated FC-0205 and FC-0208 were higher than the published values. In 2022, the MPIF Standards Committee initiated a program to re-evaluate the tensile properties of FC-0205 and FC-0208 in the heat-treated condition. The results of the testing are summarized along with a brief history of the development of tension test specimens for heat-treated PM materials.

002 - Compressive Yield Strength Testing of Powder Metallurgy (PM) Copper Steels
W. Brian James, FAPMI, PMtech

Compressive yield strength data for powder metallurgy (PM) steels were first published in the 1990–1991 edition of MPIF Standard 35, Materials Standards for PM Structural Parts. In a paper presented at the Powder Metallurgy World Congress in San Francisco in 1992 it was indicated that somewhat conservative values had been obtained for heat-treated materials that were not fully hardened throughout the 9.5-mm (0.375 inch) diameter test specimen cross-section. Subsequent testing coordinated by Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) as part of the U.S. Navy Manufacturing and Science Technology Program confirmed that the values for some materials in MPIF Standard 35 appeared somewhat lower than they should be, while some were perhaps too high. For the 2000 edition of MPIF Standard 35, the MPIF Standards Committee decided to reduce the published values for as-sintered FC-0205 and FC-0208. At that time the values for heat-treated PM copper steels published in the 1990–1991 edition were retained despite the higher values seen in the CTC work. However, because of lingering concerns that the heat-treated compressive yield strength values for the PM copper steels were too low a new test program was initiated in 2022 that resulted in new, higher values being approved for publication in the MPIF materials standard. A brief history of compressive yield strength testing of PM materials will be followed by a summary of the recent work conducted by the Standards Committee that led to the approval of the new, higher values.

004 - Recent Developments in MPIF Materials and Test Method Standards
W. Brian James, FAPMI, PMtech

The materials standards and test method standards published by MPIF are subject to periodic review. There have been five new editions of MPIF Standard 35–SP Materials Standards for PM Structural Parts in the last ten years and four of Standard Test Methods for Metal Powders and Powder Metallurgy Products. The maintenance of these standards and the development of new standards is the responsibility of the MPIF Standards Committee along with the MPPA Standards Committee. Insight will be provided into some of the key changes made during recent years along with the reasoning behind the changes. Plans for future standards development activities will also be discussed.

066 - The Hidden Costs of Surface Finish in Powder Manufacturing
Luke Thimons, Surface Design Solutions, Inc.

Despite ongoing advances in process improvement, technology, and efficiency programs, manufacturers face an ongoing issue that limits production: inefficiency caused by poor surface finish. While the problem is well recognized, effective solutions remain elusive. Engineers and researchers typically use trial-and-error testing to find a surface finish that produces acceptable performance. Even with this approach, manufacturers frequently tolerate extensive downtime and long optimization cycles. Yet there is an opportunity to understand component and process performance and how it is affected by surface finish. This opportunity simply requires a better approach to analyzing and improving surface roughness to create predictability of performance. The answer lies in a physics-informed approach to optimize surface finish. A machine-learning platform has been developed, optimized with thousands of prior surface analyses, that delivers robust, physics-informed analysis of surface roughness for any production or R&D environment. Traditional trial-and-error testing often takes weeks or months requiring slow and costly tests. This new methodology identifies the surface features and processing steps that control performance so that it can be predicted in seconds and optimized rapidly. This significantly accelerates the optimization of surface finish, increasing part performance or production capacity in days not months. 

077 - Distortion Modeling of PM HIP Parts Produced with AM HIP Capsules
Jason Mayeur, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Fabricating components via PM HIP is a well-established process capable of producing high quality near net shaped parts with excellent material properties. The process has been widely adopted by the offshore oil and gas industry and is increasingly being explored as an alternative process to make large parts for other energy sectors (e.g., nuclear, hydroelectric) to alleviate supply chain issues associated with large scale castings and forgings. The primary bottleneck of producing parts through the PM HIP route is the design and fabrication of the HIP capsule. HIP capsules are currently fabricated by hand through working and welding of sheet metal to produce the required capsule geometry, which can be a tedious process for complex geometries. To this end, there is interest in exploring the feasibility of fabricating HIP capsules via additive and/or hybrid manufacturing processes, which can drastically reduce capsule fabrication time. It is well known that the mechanical properties of AM materials may differ substantially from their wrought counterparts due to microstructural differences. Therefore, AM HIP capsules may present some challenges during the capsule design process related to mechanical property variations and/or anisotropy. In this study, we compare and assess the consolidation behavior of a PM HIP component using both conventional and AM HIP capsules and use a finite element model to understand the differences in consolidation behavior between the two cases.

125 - From Nano to Tonnage, Scaling up Nanocrystalline Materials
Michael Spencer, Veloxint, Inc.

Computational materials modeling suggests that nanocrystalline alloys hold the promise of substantially enhanced strength and hardness. Fabricating very small scale-scale parts has demonstrated these excellent properties but the production of larger-scale nanocrystalline powder and metal parts has proven to be a challenge. New manufacturing equipment needed to be created, the role of impurities had to be understood. Much of the technology is under license from both MIT and the Army Research Laboratory.

112 - A New Strategy for Metal Additive Manufacturing Using Economical As-Atomized Steel Powders
Mingzhang Yang, University of Waterloo

The high cost of powder feedstock has emerged as a critical issue in additive manufacturing (AM) of steels. In this work, a pre-alloyed water-atomized 4340 steel powder in as-atomized condition was used for binder jetting AM followed by a tailored sintering to achieve high-density and dimensional fidelity. The powders were directly produced by water atomization without additional annealing steps and featured high levels of oxygen and carbon; such a powder has never been used for AM. A comprehensive exploration of powder characteristics, fine-tuning of printing parameters, and a thermodynamically guided sintering design have collectively demonstrated the potential of these innovative powders for producing highly dense and mechanically robust low-alloy steel components. Mechanical properties of the printed steels in both as-sintered and heat-treated states were assessed and compared to traditional wrought AISI-4340, offering insights into their performance characteristics.

101 - Speed to Production: A Case Study on Automotive Exterior Badging with Metal Binder Jetting 
Cody Cochran, Azoth

Metal binder jetting is a promising additive manufacturing process as it can form complex geometries out of powder metal without significant set-up tools and lead time. This presentation focuses on a real-world partnership with General Motors in which additive manufacturing has been used to bring parts from concept to saleable production approved commercial products in an expedited timeline of a few months.
In this work, metal binder jetting printing is presented as a fabrication process for exterior automotive production vehicle applications. This presentation delves into the achievements of a real-world automotive application that utilizes metal binder jetting additive manufacturing.
The component is an exposed customer-facing automotive exterior application requiring a unique geometry and post-processing standards that were individually selected by the customers’ design team.
This success story illustrates the reality of unlocked possibilities utilizing metal binder jetting for design iteration, value cycle management, and rapid production part approval. In this specific application, the component has met all production part approval process (PPAP) quality requirements and has been installed on production vehicles.

137 - Utilization of Artificial Intelligence to Characterize Water Atomized Ferrous Powders Suitable for Laser Powder Bed Fusion
Simon Gélinas, Université Laval

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) requires metal powders characterized by strict rheological properties in terms of flowability and apparent density. For that reason, gas and plasma atomization are the preferred processes for producing metal powders for LPBF. However, water atomization achieves significantly higher production rates than the latter two methods, which would greatly bring down the costs of LPBF. The main goal of this project is to use artificial intelligence to accelerate the development of water-atomized powders having chemical and rheological characteristics suitable for LPBF. An unsupervised machine learning algorithm was used to characterize the morphology and size distribution of water-atomized particles. Additionally, this algorithm was used to identify the chemical compositions that have the greatest impact on maximizing sphericity, flowability and apparent density. Results show that by fine-tuning the concentration of chemical elements sensitive to oxidation as well as the secondary treatments, it is possible to obtain water-atomized ferrous powders having an apparent density and a flowability similar to those measured for gas atomized powders.

092 - Oxygen Impurity Control for Reactive and Refractory Metal Alloys Produced on a Plasma Gas Atomizer
Aamir Abid, Retech Systems LLC

A barrier to the broader adoption of refractory and reactive metal powders (like titanium and its alloys) is the stringent control of the chemistry of AM-suitable powders. The addition of interstitial gases such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen can influence the processing of powder via AM and will significantly alter the mechanical properties of the printed part. Plasma gas atomization (PGA) is a proven technology to produce production-scale refractory and reactive metal powders. Plasma melting allows for the introduction of a broad range of feed materials including revert without incurring the additional cost of processing feed to wire or bar forms. In this study, we investigate the sources of oxygen pickup or reduction throughout the atomization process. The evolution of oxygen levels is measured, starting at the feedstock, following through the atomization process, and finally at the product packing stage. The sources of increase or reduction of oxygen are presented and discussed.

 575- A Review of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's ChemLock Voluntary Security Program
Jeremy McMurry, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security

More than 96% of all manufactured goods depend on chemicals in some way. These chemicals are used, manufactured, stored, and transported across global supply chains, forming the bedrock of industries that touch nearly every aspect of American life—from microchips to food processing. Many of these chemicals that businesses interact with every day are dangerous chemicals that could be used in a terrorist attack.

Whether a small business or an international company, everyone who interacts with these chemicals has a role to play in understanding the risk and taking collective action to prevent chemicals being weaponized by terrorists. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) ChemLock program is a completely voluntary program that provides facilities that possess dangerous chemicals no-cost services and tools to help them better understand the risks they face and improve their chemical security posture in a way that works for their business model.