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Expert has founded and operated businesses that produce powdered metal parts. He is the co-founder and President of his organization. The development of metals and alloys has been the focus of his career. He understands thoroughly the manufacturing process that converts powder to parts. He works with irons, aluminum, bronze, brass, stainless steels, and other sintered materials. The most common material he processes are steels with up to .8% carbon. These materials are often made with additions of copper, nickel as elements, and with added molybdenum, manganese, and chromium in prealloyed materials. Using powder metallurgy techniques, he has developed low alloy steels and non-ferrous materials such as bronzes and brasses. He has pressed, presintered, and repressed or coined prototype materials to very high densities.

Understanding the mixing of metal powders as well as the compaction, delubrication, sintering, machining, heat treating, and finishing of powdered metal parts, Expert can offer remedial approaches to end user problems. He is familiar with powder forging and HIP'd material. He has evaluated metal powders and their production.


Expert is familiar with the methods of test for powdered metal materials and their physical and mechanical properties. He has been chairman of ASTM B9 on metal powders and represented USA in ISO TC 119 on methods of test for powdered metal materials. He consults with the Powdered Metallurgy Parts Manufacturing Association Standards Committee, providing test bars, testing services, and evaluation of sintered structures.

Having worked for five years for a metal powder manufacturing company, Expert understands metal powder components including manufacturing the prototype materials from which metal powder components are tested. His pilot plant has three presses for compacting metal powders into prototype materials and test bars. He and his associates have 24 years experience in failure analysis of green and sintered pressed metal powder. He has operated two rotating beam RR Moore type fatigue testing machines for measuring the endurance limit of sintered materials.


The majority of Expert's 33 years of experience in the powder metallurgy business has been devoted to sintering including iron materials and metal powders. Powder-Tech regularly manufactures prototype sintered iron and steel discs, bars, and test bars. They evaluate powders for the various manufacturers and participate in the development of new sintered alloys. They also study the degree of sintering for powder metallurgy suppliers and end users and conduct failure analyses. Expert is also familiar with heat treating, machining, and secondary operations such as plating or plastic impregnation. Twenty-three years of his career was devoted to consulting and engineering development work for sintered metals.


Expert co-authored a chapter in the ASM Metals Handbook that explains the unusual features of the metallography of sintered material. He uses metallographic techniques in his laboratory to diagnose problems in field failures of powdered metal parts. He has 33 years experience in the pressing or molding of metal powders. His pilot plant has three presses for molding metal powders into simple prototype shapes such as discs and test bars.

Expert has written extensively on the MIM industry and is familiar with all the powder suppliers, manufacturers of parts, and many specific applications. He has done failure analysis on MIM parts. He has carried out market surveys for usage of MIM parts and parts made by other powdered metal methods.


Currently, Expert works on developing powder metallurgy materials and alloys created by admixing or prealloying metallic and nonmetallic elements. Powder-Tech Associates operates a laboratory and pilot plant for this purpose. The group presses and sinters iron powders and mixtures to form iron alloys. They examine sintered iron parts as well as wrought materials.


Expert routinely studies the depth of carburization on sintered iron and low alloy steels. His group measures the depth of decarburization in ASTM B09.05.


Powder-Tech maintains a database of 3,000 producers and consumers in the powder metallurgy industry. They have a specific list of 235 producers of captive or custom powder metallurgy parts. The company has generated mechanical property databases such as that maintained by CTC on powder metallurgy materials, ASTM, MPIF, and SAE.



Expert conducts failure analysis on powder metallurgy and other parts on a regular basis. Techniques involved include optical microscopy, studying the pore shape and degree of sintering, case depth, microhardness testing, degree of steam blackening, and scanning electron microscopy of fracture surfaces to determine whether the crack occurred in the green or sintered state. He is also familiar with the microcracks or original particle boundaries that can be left behind in powder metallurgy components. A recent example of his work involved the failure of a device subject to rolling contact fatigue where the powder metallurgy object had been over-pressed.

Expert has 33 years experience in the manufacture, development, and testing of porous materials made from metal powders. He produces prototype materials of varying densities by pressing and sintering stainless steel or bronze filters or by gravity sintering. He performs failure analysis on filter media and other pressed and sintered powder metallurgy parts. Using a Zeiss Image Analyzer, he measures the area fraction of porosity on these parts.


Familiar with powder metallurgy fines, Expert analyses the particle size distribution using laser light and optical metallography. He can also use a quantitative image analyzer to characterize the shapes of fine particles.


Powder-Tech operates a vacuum furnace, a 6" o muffle atmosphere furnace, and a small tube furnace in its laboratory and pilot plant. The group has consulted on furnace atmosphere problems. They operate sintering furnaces for vacuum sintering to 2500F and atmosphere sintering to 2100F. On a regular basis, they purchase heat treatment for hardening steels and examine parts that have been sintered and heat treated.


He served as U.S. Representative on ISO TC119, SC3, SC5, Test Methods and Mechanical Property Data for Powder Metallurgy materials. He also wrote the test procedures for tensile test specimen and fatigue test specimen of P/M materials.


Expert operates a laboratory for characterization of metal powders and parts made from metal powders. He has written ASTM and ISO test procedures for evaluating powder metallurgy materials. Tests performed in his lab include optical metallography, image analysis, microhardness testing, apparent hardness testing, measurement of density, flow rates of metal powders, compactibility of metal powders, transverse rupture strength, and rotating beam fatigue testing.


Expert possesses market data on the consumption of metal powders and products made from metal powders.


Expert and his group measure physical properties such as density, flow rate and apparent density of metal powders, particle shape by image analysis, and electrical conductivity. They also measure material properties including density of sintered materials, porosity and oil content of sintered bearings, apparent density of metal powders, flow rate and compactibility of metal powders, electrical conductivity of sintered compacts, structure of the internal porosity in sintered parts, and mechanical tests such as tensile properties, fatigue properties, hardness, and microhardness. The group has participated in interlaboratory studies and organized and run interlaboratory studies in ASTM on a number of material properties. They also evaluate the bearing characteristics of material and the machinability of sintered materials using drilling tests.


Expert has measured properties of metals such as electrical conductivity, tensile strength, .2% yield strength, percent elongation, transverse rupture strength in 3-point bending, rotating beam fatigue endurance limit, apparent hardness, and microhardness.


The equipment in Expert's pilot plant includes mixers capable of mixing batches of metal powder of up to 1 pound, 30 pounds and 500 pounds. He makes mixtures of iron and graphite with additional elements such as copper and nickel or manganese sulfide.

Expert sells sintered bronze materials made by powder metallurgy techniques and has characterized and measured their mechanical properties. At his company's pilot plant, he makes sintered bronze material for prototype parts and bearings. He regularly characterizes the degree of sintering on these bronzes in terms of freedom from copper tin intermetallic compounds. He also evaluates the development of alpha bronze grains and the decrease in the number of small grain clusters and copper rich regions.


In evaluating sintered structures, Expert frequently uses a scanning electron microscope. He has examined fracture surfaces as parts of legal cases and has studied fracture surfaces to determine if a crack occurred prior to sintering or in the sintered state.


He works with equipment to determine the tap density of metal powders under ASTM B527.


Expert has constructed and used equipment for testing sintered bearings. Employing optical metallography, SEM, oil content, open porosity, degree of sintering, and density test methods, he routinely conducts failure analyses on bearings. His company makes sintered metal bearings and carries out tests on bearing life. Powder-Tech regularly manufactures sintered bronze and other bearing materials and sells them in the oil impregnated condition for manufacture of small lots of bearings or prototype bearings.


In his laboratory and pilot plant, Expert measures the compaction curves of metal powders and mixtures. Using the ASTM B331 test procedure, he measures the achieved density.


A member and fellow of ASTM since 1963, Expert has been Chairman of the society's B9 Powder Metallurgy Committee. Other positions include Chairman of B09.01, Nomenclature, Chairman of B09.11, Fully Dense Material, and Secretary to several committees. He carried out interlaboratory test programs on measurement of density, compressibility, and transverse rupture strength. Additionally, Expert participated in generating and tabulating data on the mechanical properties for sintered materials.


Expert produces green or sintered compacts for 80% of the North American custom and captive powder metallurgy parts producers. He is familiar with various kinds of pressing defects.


Expert often conducts failure analysis on powder metallurgy parts made from sponge iron powders. He has done development work in the pressing and sintering of sponge iron powders. He was an expert witness for the U.S. Customs Court to help determine if a certain powder was a sponge iron.


Expert measures particle size distribution on powders by sieving or by image analysis and judges the particle shape or the morphology by image analysis. By using optical metallography applications, he mounts and polishes groups of particles to check their microstructure.