21세기 자동차 사회에서는 대도시 대기오염이 적고, 에 관련된 지구규모 온난화문제에 영향이 적은 초저연비 자동차가 요구되고 있다. 이번 학술강연에서는 이러한 요구에 대응할 수 있는 ULEV(Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) 후보와 초저연비 자동차기술에 대하여 언급하고자 한다.

Rapidly-solidified P/M aluminium alloys for automobile and home appliance industries were developed. Rapidly-solidification made it possible to refine microstructures and to expand the range of alloy composition. For example, Al-Si alloys containing transition metal have lower thermal expansion coefficient, more excellent wear resistance, higher strength, and better machinability than those of conventional aluminium alloys. Therefore, in Japan, the technologies on powder-extrusion and powder-forging of aluminium alloy powders are developed for fifteen years, and applied to several parts, such as cylinder liners of motor cycle engines, rotors and vanes of compressors for car air conditioner, oil pump rotor for racing car, and so on. In this presentation, applications for automobile are mentioned. In particular, cylinder liners made of particle-dispersed composites with fine alumina and graphite are in detail described.

During sintering of very porous green bodies, as obtained by compaction of hard powders - such as tungsten carbide or ceramics - or by injection moulding, important shrinkage occurs. Due to heterogeneous green density field, gravity effects, friction on the support, thermal gradients, etc., this shrinkage is often non-uniform, which' may induce significant shape changes. As the ratio of compact dimension to powder size is very high, the mechanics of continuum is relevant to model such phenomena. Thus numerical techniques, such as the finite element method can be used to simulate the sintering process and predict the final shape of the sintered part. Such type of simulation has much been developed in the last decade firstly for hot isostatic pressing and next for die compaction. Finite element modelling has been recently applied to free sintering. The simulation of sintering should be based on constitutive equations describing the thermo-mechanical behaviour of the material under any state of stress and any temperature which may arise within the sintering body. These equations can be drawn either from experimental data or from micromechanical models. The experiments usually consist in free sintering and sinter-forging tests. Indeed applying more complex loading conditions at high temperature under controlled atmosphere is delicate. Micromechanical models describe the constitutive behaviour of aggregates of spheres from the deformation of two-sphere contact either by viscous flow or grain boundary diffusion. Such models are not able to describe complex microstructure and mechanisms as observed in real materials but they can give some basic information on the formulation of constitutive equations. Practically both experimental and theoretical approaches can be coupled to identify the constitutive equations. Such procedure has been performed for modelling the sintering of compacts obtained by die pressing of a mixture of tungsten carbide and cobalt powders. The constitutive behaviour of this material during sintering has been described by a linear viscous constitutive model, whose functions have been fitted from results of free sintering and sinter-forging experiments. This model has next been introduced in ABAQUS finite element code to simulate the sintering of heterogeneous green compacts of various geometries at constant temperature. Examples of simulations are shown and compared with experiments.