Shuhai Huo, Bill Heath, and Chaman Lall
The application of powder metallurgy (PM) aluminum structural parts is at its early growing stage, despite of some automotive applications. The market potential for PM aluminum, however, is large. Growth is expected from the market expansion of the existing applications and new applications, including the replacements of aluminum and zinc based castings and some ferrous PM automotive parts by the PM aluminum. Compared to castings, PM is an efficient mass production technology. The PM aluminum is more competitive than die casting for some automotive applications. Besides weight saving leading to performance improvement, the total cost increase for aluminum PM parts is less than 15% compared to some ferrous PM automotive parts. The future is promising for the PM aluminum.
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