AncorLam®, a soft magnetic material to replace lamination steels -
Dr K S (Sim) Narasimhan, Hoeganaes Corporation, USA

Density has been the driver for the growth of powder metallurgical parts.  Increasing the density increases tensile strength, yield strength, ductility and modulus. Several techniques are used for increasing the density such as double press–double sinter, Cu infiltration, powder forging and other non-traditional higher compaction technologies.
Hoeganaes Corporation was the first to develop and introduce warm compaction as a means to increase density at a lower cost. This Ancordense®; process is widely used today.  To further increase the acceptance of this technology a warm die compaction process, called Ancormax® 200 that does not require powder heating was introduced.  This allowed density of 7.4 to 7.5g/cm³ to be achieved at conventional compaction pressures and sintering temperatures.
This presentation reviews various high-density processes and the types of parts that have been converted to PM from the competing technologies.

Silicon steels dominate soft magnetic materials market. It has been the desire of powder metallurgists to replace lamination steels with powder metal components. Lamination steels are punched to shape and are stacked and welded.  Powder metal components can be made directly to shape in one single operation. The development of the powder metal process for replacing lamination steel was inspired by the fact that eddy current core losses can be confined to an individual particle in a compact as long as coating electrically isolates these particles.  Major application of these types of materials is in devices, such as motors, induction coil cores, actuators.  Further future technologies that can benefit from this development:

       Global Trends

• Energy efficient motors
• Reduced weight in packaging electronic products
• Sensor usage is increasing
• Hybrid electric cars
• Move from mechanical to electrical systems

A coating process was developed to individually coat iron powder particles; this new powder AncorLam does not require heating of the powder for producing parts.  This newly developed insulated iron powder is compacted with heated dies at 93°C.  Densities as high as 7.5g/cm3 can be achieved at compaction pressures of 800MPa with resistivity exceeding 15,000 micro-Ohm cm. The green strength of these compacts approaches 100MPa depending on compaction pressure, at 800MPa a green strength of 100MPa is achieved.