Powder metal is typically used on small- to medium- sized parts at medium to high production volumes where wear resistance and corrosion resistance are critical. Typical parts made from powder metal include gears, bearings, cylinders, bushings, triggers, hammers, and other structural parts. The primary advantages to powder metal are the ability to create near to full net shape parts as well as maintain very close dimensional tolerances at high production volumes. aPriori’s baseline cost model supports costing powder metal parts that are up to 8 inches in height and 25 pounds.

The powder metal process group enables estimation of manufacturing times and costs for compaction and sintering processes. The process model includes estimates for the tooling costs for the press used for compaction and the fixturing costs in sintering, if the user selects the use of flatness plates (by default in the aPriori starting point VPEs, flatness plates are not enabled).