Perspectives in Powder Metallurgy Fundamentals

Powder metallurgy literature in the English language includes a large number of books and several thousand articles in various journals. The rate of growth of this literature increases from year to year. It covers well the whole field of powder metallurg- materials, processes and products - with two exceptions: friction and antifriction branches of powder metallurgy. This lack of information has nothing to do with scientific or technical considerations, and definitely has nothing to do with lack of initiative in the development of these materials. The industry concerned with the production of friction and antifriction materials is continually developing new products and techniques and produc- tion is steadily growing. However, most companies working on these materials regard their experiences and new advancements as "proprietary" and, for competitive reasons, are not interested in publishing in the technical literature except for very perfunctory and usually highly commercial papers. Very little work on fric- tion and antifriction materials is going on in independent labora- tories and university laboratories, although fundamental studies in this field offer very interesting aspects.