High strength PM aluminium alloys Al-Zn-Mg-Cu (7075 type) were studied by using commercially available powder blends and the sinter-forging technique for component production. Principal areas of focus include the response to PM processing, micro structural assessment and material properties of Aluminium sinter forged products. Green preforms are successfully sintered to near full density by solid-supersolidus liquid phase sintering. Sinter forging method can produce components with net shape and mechanical characteristics of the material have improved greatly. Properties of this new PM Al-alloy were found to be reproducible in an industrial production environment.

The influence of porosity (P) on Young's modulus (E) and Poisson's ratio of sintered steels produced from four types of steel powders was investigated. The values of E and depend mainly on the value of P, and those were a little affected by alloying elements. The relationships between E, , and P were described as following equations: and , where subscript 0 means P = 0, and and are empirical constants. These approximate equations showed good agreement with empirical results.

The nanostructure control of ceramics can be achieved by using fine starting powder and retardation of grain growth. The spark plasma sintering technique is useful to retard the grain growth by rapid heating. In the present work, the change of microstructure was investigated with emphasis on the particle size of starting powder, the amount of sintering additive and the heating schedule. The rapid heating by spark plasma sintering gave the fine microstructure consisting of equiaxed grains with the same size as starting particles. The spark plasma sintering of fine powder was effective to control the microstrucutre on nano-meter level.

Subaru Telescope proposes to hold Subaru East Asia Youth School (Tentative Name) in 2005.