Improving on an Ancient Process, Modern Methods of Heat Treating Sintered Steel

Innovative Solution #10850

The use of Sinter Hardened Powder Metal to achieve a microstructure optimized for strength and improved dimensional tolerance.

Overview

Atlas Pressed Metals produces a complex gear for use in an automotive application, produced to AGMA level 7 quality standards.  This two level gear requires a heat-treated microstructure for strength and wear.  Heat treating a component that requires tight tolerances is a challenge for manufacturers.

Challenge

This gear requires a heat treat operation to optimize the microstructure for strength, surface hardness, and wear resistance, all while maintaining tight AGMA tolerances for the application.  The traditional oil quench process has a high potential for distortion.  A warped component would be unacceptable in this application.

Results

Atlas Pressed Metals Engineers put their experience and knowledge to work. With a deep understanding of materials and microstructures, the Atlas team selected a sinter hardened material that did not require an oil quench heat treatment to produce the gear.  The decision to sinter hardened this material in the furnace saved two time-consuming transports to and from a secondary heat treatment supplier as well as provided the required dimensional stability.

Since this sinter hardened gear is manufactured to a near net shape, this alternative to a secondary heat treatment provided a strong economic incentive as well. Over four million units have been used in this automotive application.

Interested in learning more about Sinter Hardened materials? Looking for the optimized microstructure to improve the performance of your components?  Or just interested in having a technical discussion with materials experts? Atlas Pressed Metals Engineers are ready for a new challenge. Call us today.