Powdered metal gears are made through the process of powder metallurgy. There have been many advances to this process over the years, which have in turn caused an increase in the popularity of powdered metal as a gear material.
Using powder metal gear in many industries, but most use it in the automotive sector. Typical automotive applications include engine parts such as sprockets and pulleys, gear shift components, oil pump gears, and turbocharger systems. Can use powder metallurgy to produce spur gears, helical gears, and bevel gears.
What is Powder Metallurgy?
Powder metallurgy is a process for forming metal parts. There are three steps in the process:
- Mixing the metal powders
- Compacting the powders to the desired shape
- Heating the compacted shape under controlled conditions
- The end result is a metal part that is nearly identical to the desired shape and requires little or no machine finishing, depending on the level of precision needed.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Powdered Metal Gears
The primary reason that powdered metal gears may be preferred over more traditional gear materials is cost. In large production quantities, it is less expensive to manufacture a gear made of powdered metal than a gear made of iron or steel. First, less energy is used during manufacture, and there is also very little material waste. The manufacturing cost is also generally less when considering that many powdered metal parts do not require very much, if any, machine finishing.
Other features that make powdered metal appealing have to do with its material structure. Due to the porous composition of powdered metal gears, they are lightweight and typically run quietly. Also, the powder material can produce unique characteristics. For gears, this includes the opportunity to impregnate the porous material with oil, resulting in gears that are self-lubricate.
There are some drawbacks to powdered metal gears, however. One of the most significant is that powdered metal is not as strong, and also wears more quickly than other materials. There are also size limitations when using powdered metal materials to maintain both manufacturability and effectiveness of the gear.
Why Should You Consider Powder Metal Gears?
- Gear quality up to AGMA Class 8 possible without a secondary operation.
- Forming the gear tooth in a precision Die means excellent part to part consistency.
- The gear ID can have a spline shape, a keyway installed, a D- Shape, almost any shape without costly broaching.
- Helical gears are possible with up to a 20-degree helix angle.
- One-piece flange and hub cluster gears are possible.
- For applications such as a Powder Metal GEAR, we can provide you with ready to use gears, fully machined to extremely close tolerances and finishes.
- There is tooling needed, normally with short payback periods, and only a onetime charge, then Vision Quality Components maintains the tools for the life of the part.