The sintered parts are mainly used for automobile industry, and a part of air conditioners. In automobile industry, the application range of sintered parts is very broad and use for a driving and a lubricating system. And air conditioner uses them for compressor. Grinding of compressor and pump parts is very difficult these days, because these parts use High hardness materials and require high precision grinding. Tool life has to be extended to decrease production cost. We analyzed processing mechanism and developed new grinding wheels for Double Disk Grinding. And, we introduce new truing technology that improved tool-life and precision.

P/M enables the economical production of components for many kinds of gears. Functionally, the sub gear requires high tooth accuracy and bending fatigue strength. The whole tooth profile was sized after sintering to satisfy the gear tooth accuracy specification. The part was redesigned to reduce machining requirements. The required bending fatigue strength was achieved through appropriate material choice and induction of compressive residual stress by shotpeening after carburizing. The P/M sub gear replaced a forged steel gear, satisfied performance requirements, expanded the use of P/M applications and provided over 30% cost reduction.

The new alloy1) is made from rapidly solidified Al-Ni-Zr-Ce aluminum alloy powder, and has the following unique mechanical characteristics:(1) The stress-strain curve shows a yield point; (2) The alloy shows high heat resistance; (3) Although the alloy is submicron particle diameter, it shows excellent creep resistance. We observed the micro structures of this new alloy, and it is thought that is based on the following reasons:(1) The dislocation strongly adheres to the alloy’s many crystal boundaries;(2) The added alloying elements have a small diffusion coefficient in aluminum;(3) The tiny intermetallic compound particles crystallizing at the grain boundary.

We successfully developed Al-Si-Transition Metal (TM) -Rare Earth (RE) Powder Metallurgy (P/M) alloy with fine microstructure, which has high strength at high temperature. This material was compacted rapidly solidified powder and directly consolidated by hot extruding or forging. Before consolidating, rapid heating was performed on powder compaction in order to keep the fine microstructure in powder state. We have also investigated the processing conditions of this new alloy by computing simulations and experiments.