A solid stage sinterizacion model of the WC-Co is applied on this work. These results are compaired with the experimental data obtained for nanometric and micrometric sinter powder in an electric furnace and micrometric in a plasma reactor (using Abnormal Glow Discharge AGD). The correlations obtained allow the prediction of the sintering behavior in AGD for nanometric powder. The activation of the solid state sintering is shown with the decraease of the WC size and the use of AGD

PM recent developments focus on increasing this technology's competitiveness when compared to wrought materials. Warm compaction allows the replacement of a double press double sinter process with a single warm press and sintering step, thus allowing cost and time savings. Moreover there are added benefits to consider such as reducing work in process and lessening part's logistics cost. This paper presents a successful industrial trial to replace a double press-double sinter process with a warm die compaction and sintering process. The part chosen was a high performance gear containing 0,9% wt. carbon. Sintering was conducted in a belt furnace at in a nitrogen rich atmosphere with rapid cooling process in order to obtain a quasi fully martensitic structure with a minimum of 700HV0,1 and 450HV10 after annealing. The balance between properties and cost is favoured by the use of a singular lubricant developed in a Eureka frame project together with POMETON S.A. and die warm compaction. Warm compaction is only needed to be effective on the gear teeth, in order to achieve the required properties. Therefore only the die is actually heated. This simplified system avoids flow rate problems typically involved when using more elaborate warm compaction equipments.

In conclusion, tremendous potential exists for the application of animal biotechnology to the beef industry, especially with the utilization of embryo cloning to produce genetically identical animals and genetic engineering to modify animal genomes to improve and /or create new phenotypes for many economically important traits. Research involving embryo cloning and genetic engineering of animals has been continuous now for over a decade, however inefficiencies in techniques have prevented large scale application. large numbers of identical cattle will some day be produced and producers will be utilizing transgenic cattle in their beef production programs.