What IS Sintered Metal?
Well, let's answer that question with another question, "What is the strong metal on earth?"
Titanium? Tungsten? The metal used to make the wolverine's claws?
Perhaps
any and all of these are the correct answer, as scientists are still
battling it out over who wins the MEDAL for the strongest METAL. What we
CAN tell you, however is that the strongest metal on earth is
impervious to most modern-day metallurgy techniques. That being said,
let's just pretend that tungsten is the strongest of all. A lot of
companies have begun using it as a precious metal out of which to make
jewelry, such as rings.
So, how exactly would a company go
about making that ring? Do they simply throw it in a pot and melt it
down to start forging into a circle? Yes and no. Fact of the matter is,
tungsten, being one of the hardest and most durable metals in the world
falls prey to the very thing that makes it so valuable: it is nearly
indestructible. As such, using it for anything makes it instantly one of
the more expensive metals for consumer use.
So,
why is it exactly that metals like this are so difficult to work with?
Well, being of incredible durability, melting it down isn't exactly
an option unless you happen to have a super-oven that is hot enough to reach over
6100 degrees Fahrenheit.
For
this reason, companies find themselves spending millions of dollars
over the course of their firms lifetime just to operate these incredible
machines capable of managing heavy metals.
Which brings in one of the latest industrial technological advances:
High temperature powder metallurgy.
At SSI Sintered,
they specialize in the manufacturing of steel and other metal components
through the use of powder metal sintering. What is that? Simply put, it
takes the base component of powdered metal particles, brings them to
near melting point temperatures, and binds the atoms together across the surface of the particles to hold it together in a much stronger fashion that of traditional metal working methods.
By utilizing this process, SSI Sintered is able to manufacture more parts per order and in a shorter period of time. Not only
does the production time go down, have longer production runs, and cost
less per unit, but there is close to ZERO waste as a result. The powder
metal compaction process involves utilizing nearly 100% of the base
material without a serious amount of loss.
Perhaps one of the
most amazing features of this system is the overall quality of the
product. With the economy being in a rough spot lately, a lot of firms
are trying to find as many ways to slash budgets as they can. As such,
often times, companies have known to drop the quality on their
product to improve the bottom line.
Not SSI Sintered.
Rather,
the quality of the component holds steady and gets better and better
each year as technology advances to improve the sintering process. With
most traditional metal working methods such as stamping, forging, and
machining bringing in a theoretical density as low as 82%, SSI
Sintered's technology results in a product with such high density, as
high as 94%.
On January 26th, SSI Technologies was
presented with Forward Janesville's 2017 Business of the Year Award for large
corporations at the chamber of commerce's annual awards banquet.
