High speed steels (HSS) were used as cutting tools and wear parts, because of high strength, wear resistance, and hardness together with an appreciable toughness and fatigue resistance. Conventional manufacturing process for production of components with HSS was used by casting. The powder metallurgy techniques were currently developed due to second phase segregation of conventional process. The powder injection molding method (PIM) was received attention owing to shape without additional processes. The experimental specimens were manufactured with T42 HSS powders (59 vol%) and polymer (41 vol%). The metal powders were prealloyed water-atomised T42 HSS. The green parts were solvent debinded in normal n-Hexane at for 24 hours and thermal debinded at mixed gas atmosphere for 14 hours. Specimens were sintered in , gas atmosphere and vacuum condition between 1200 and . In result, polymer degradation temperatures about optimum conditions were found at and . After sintering at gas atmosphere, maximum hardness of 310Hv was observed at . Fine and well dispersed carbide were observed at this condition. But relative density was under 90%. When sintering at gas atmosphere, relative density was observed to 94.5% at . However, the low hardness was obtained due to decarbonization by hydrogen. In case of sintering at the vacuum of torr at temperature of , full density and 550Hv hardness were obtained without precipitation of MC and in grain boundary.

The effect of tempering temperature on the three point bending fatigue behavior of a P/M high speed steel JYPS-23 (1.28% C, 4.20% Cr, 6.40% W, 5.00% Mo, 3.10% V, bal. Fe) was investigated. The number of cycles to failure of the specimen austenitized at drastically increased with increasing tempering temperature. As tempering temperature increased from 500 to , the volume fraction and average size of carbides (MC or M6C) did not significantly changed, while hardness decreased drastically. The reduced hardness is due to the softening of matrix, which increased the resistance of the fatigue crack propagation. For a practical application, powder compacting test were also conducted with the P/M high speed steel punches tempered at 500, 580, and . The number of compacting cycles to failure of the punches also increased with increasing tempering temperature.

For quantitative assessment of flexural strength by crack condition of PSC sleeper, which is one of the main components of the ballasted track, 9 PSC sleepers used in Gyeongbu high speed railway line were sampled and static bending strength tests were conducted by EN 13230-2. The flexural strength of PSC sleepers with some mesh or longitudinal cracks was lower than that of new sleepers. In particular, the flexural strength of PSC sleepers with mesh-type cracks was less than 40% of the new sleepers’ flexural strength. The flexural strength of uncracked sleepers was similar to that of new sleepers