Hoeganaes Corporation is a leading producer of ferrous metal powders and serves the global powder metallurgy (P/M) marketplace. These powders are used in the mass production of a wide variety of structural metal parts employed in the automotive, lawn and garden equipment, appliance and other industries. In addition, they are used as additives in food and pharmaceutical products, additives for plastics and chemicals, as well as for welding and torch cutting, friction materials, and printing and reprographic systems.
The company has led the way in introducing new, technologically advanced metal powders that meet the ever-increasing demand for high-performance P/M materials. For more than a decade, Hoeganaes developed and introduced more new processes and products than any other company in the metal powder industry. The new processes have been a major factor in thrusting powder metal technology into the position of the fastest growing metal forming process in the world.
The onset of this growth in technology and advanced products can be traced back to the introduction, in 1989, of the company’s ANCORBOND® process which allows for binder-treated, engineered and press-ready premixed materials. The introduction of ANCORBOND was a revolutionary event in P/M technology and the most significant development since the advent of water atomization in the early sixties.
Significant new products produced with this technology made P/M materials extremely competitive with other metal forming products, thus opening opportunities for new applications. Most recently, three high-performance alternatives to malleable and ductile cast iron parts were developed with a derivative of the ANCORBOND process. This is the first time that P/M materials achieved such performance characteristics. The products are part of Hoeganaes’ Ancorloyâ product line.
Other processes derived from ANCORBOND include ANCORDENSEâ, which allows the production of cost-effective ferrous P/M parts with greater performance characteristics with single compaction, and an Insulated Powders process that produces unique electromagnetic P/M materials with each particle coated with a non-conductive thermoplastic polymer.
Beyond ANCORBOND and its derivatives, Hoeganaes developed many new products in the last decade that have proven exceptionally valuable to parts makers and end users. Ancorsteelâ 737 SH is a unique product developed specifically for sinter-hardening applications. The prealloyed material has greater hardenability than other sinter-hardening materials and significantly, it overcomes the problem of poor compressibility heretofore associated with such materials.
Most recently the company introduced a unique technology for producing fine metal powders using the water atomization process. This development allows for the production of high-purity, near-spherical prealloyed particles, a suitable alternative to gas atomized and carbonyl powders at a substantially lower cost. These new fine metal powders typically average below 20 microns in size.
New metal powder products developed with these processes have allowed fabricators to produce parts with greater strength, higher densities, enhanced green strength, and additional properties needed to compete with other technologies. In addition, these advances have allowed fabricators to produce parts with more complex geometries than ever before possible.
Hoeganaes has four manufacturing facilities – Cinnaminson, N. J., Gallatin, Tenn., Milton, Pa., and Ridgway, Pa. – and has an on-going production capacity expansion program exceeding $100 million in the past several years. This program is designed to assure both short- and long-term availability of product to meet the ever-expanding use of metal powders.
Most recently the company completed construction of a new, stand-alone processing facility at Gallatin that doubles the company’s capacity to produce all grades of bonded materials. These materials are used in producing high-performance metal powder parts, especially for the automotive industry where the use of P/M parts has increased dramatically in the past decade. In addition, a new annealing furnace just went on-line at the facility and another one will be operational early this year. This brings to 12 the total annealing furnaces at the facility. In addition to the increased capacity, the steel plant in Gallatin has also introduced a secondary, state-of-the-art ladle refining system allowing the company to produce powders with improved micro-cleanliness, enhanced dynamic mechanical properties and greater consistency.
This growth at the Gallatin plant brings annual capacity there to 350,000 tons, making it the largest producer of atomized ferrous metal powders at one location.
In addition, as Hoeganaes expands its efforts on a global basis, international facilities have become paramount in its planning. Full mixing operations are now on-stream at ANCORSTEEL POWDERS GmbH’s ferrous metal powder plant in Hückeswagen, Germany.
ANCORSTEEL POWDERS GmbH is a member of Hoeganaes, USA. Its 2500 square meter (27,000 square feet) plant also began green-part reprocessing recently. It is the only European facility with this capability. The plant has the capacity to produce 45,000 metric tons (50,000 short tons) annually of mixes and reprocessed materials.
The company recently installed five- and 10-ton mixers that permit it to mix, to customer specifications, base materials with other elemental alloys and bring these products to the European marketplace.
In addition, the plant installed a fully capable laboratory for product quality control, process control, and customer application development. The laboratory began operations recently and provides full technical support. It performs traditional PM green testing – apparent density, green strength, flow, etc. – and has full chemistry capability.
The company plans to introduce advanced bonding technique processing equipment in the near future. This will permit it to work closely with customers on new applications utilizing Hoeganaes’ patented ANCORBOND® process. It will allow for small production runs and market sampling. Large capacity processing will be accomplished at Hoeganaes’ facility in North America.
In addition to the plant’s production capability, all Hoeganaes materials – bonded and non-bonded – are available for distribution from the facility.
Hoeganaes will continue to invest in programs that improve metal powder manufacturing and expand its production capacity to assure fabricators and end users of metal powder parts that the supply of raw materials will be readily available well in advance of industry demand.
These capacity expansion efforts provide a snapshot of the acceptance and growth of P/M technology, both at Hoeganaes and throughout the industry.
Hoeganaes headquarters are in Cinnaminson, N. J. GKN Plc., U.K., is its parent company.
Number of Employees
Turnover
Sales Contact
Mr Tim Hale
Marketing Manager