How Advanced PM can Benefit Electric Motors.

Powder Metallurgy (PM) has established itself as a leading-edge parts manufacturing process - enabling new designs with simplified production while simultaneously offering cost effectiveness and reduced carbon emissions. What started out offering self-lubricating bearings has evolved into a process capable of meeting the most stringent mechanical property demands for automotive, lawn and garden, HVAC, power tools... This high performance evolution at Horizon Technology is a synergy of unique powders coupled with advancements in both compaction and sintering technologies to create 3 pillars of powder metallurgy.

PM – A Reliable Part making Technology  

Today’s manufacturing environment demands flexibility of design along with minimum energy consumption and long-term reliability.  Flexibility of design means the ability to create complex 3D shapes while minimizing machining losses (also an energy waster).  What if you can take your current design, either a single piece (requiring extensive machining) or a complex multi-piece assembly, and convert it into one piece with known reliability and potential cost-saving advantages.  The answer is powder metallurgy (PM).  PM is an established metal-forming process that utilizes particulate materials that is compacted in a closed die enabling a wide variety of shapes, see figure 1 below for some of the many shapes enabled by PM.    

Much like the automotive market, the electric motor market is undergoing a dramatic revolution aimed at higher performance and reduced energy consumption. This is not to suggest that the traditional radial flux motor design will be totally replaced but there are numerous new and existing applications where weight, size, performance, and energy consumption will play a more dominant role in the motor selection. The old adage of “one size fits all” can no longer be used in the design of electric motors with each application having its own unique requirements. What are the current new motor design types under consideration and what are their potential advantages?

Electric Motor Design: A Balance of Shape and Performance

You may be asking why we’re advocating for the use of Ultra High-Temperature Sintering (UHTS) for powder metal components – As discussed previously, this revolutionary sintering process offers performance-enhancing benefits (such as lighter weight, reduced size, and higher fatigue strength) to a wide variety of applications (speed reducer sets, transmission components, ceiling fans, mobility applications, parking pawls, and more).