Abstract
Powder metallurgy is a widely used process specializing in the creation of unique alloys and metal matrix composites (MMCs) that cast and wrought alloy processing techniques cannot achieve. Production of metal powders, however, can be cost prohibitive when considering small production runs. Some techniques, such as gas atomization, are necessary for producing clean, spherical powders, but these pristine powders are not always required, depending on the post-processing technique that will be employed. For example, during cryomilling the pristine nature of the metal feedstock powders is destroyed from ball milling in a slurry of liquid nitrogen or argon. Building on the work of previous research, we have designed a machine capable of generating inexpensive, irregularly shaped powder metals suitable for further processing. Design of the centrifuge was based off the findings from investigating two different analytical models with the results verified by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for powder formation in the centrifuge chamber. The analytical models agree within 3% of one another and within 11% of the CFD model. The machine has been designed and developed to be built for under $15,000 to meet the criteria given to be considered “inexpensive.”