Powder Metallurgy in Belarus and Global Developmental Trends

Trends and prospects for the development of industry according to materials of European and world congresses on powder metallurgy and publications in leading specialized foreign editions are analyzed. Trends of the stable development of the production of powder structural parts for the automotive industry in developed countries, including using assembly technology during joint sintering, are noted. The production of articles using MIM methods is constantly growing, and micro MIM technology has become a separate subindustry, making it possible to manufacture products 0.1 g and less in weight. HIP methods have found a second use; it becomes possible to fabricate large-scale billets from corrosion-resistant steels up to 1000 kg in weight, and post-HIPing technology is used increasingly to improve the quality of products fabricated by additive technologies and important castings. Products up to 100 kg in weight are already being fabricated using additive technologies. The author's opinion on the developmental prospects of powder metallurgy in Europe and around the world is also formulated, and the developmental directions of industry in Belarus and its influence on the development of global powder metallurgy are determined. In particular, new brands of economically alloyed powder steels are being developed. They make it possible to decrease the prime cost of mass structural parts without worsening their technical characteristics. For the same purpose, the processes of sintering combined with quenching are improved and endogas is used for cooling instead of nitrogen, unlike foreign analogs.