AUSTRIAN ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF POWDER METALLURGY IN THE PAST TEN YEARS

Abstract

AUSTIUAdisposes of a relatively small but efficient powder-metallurgical industry, represented by Metallwerk Plansee (refractory metals, cemented carbides, and other hard materials, contact materials, parts and porous bearings, cermets, c the Bohler A.G. (cemented carbides, hard-facing alloys, and sintered magnets); the metal-powder manufacturers: Walter Marx and Co. (aluminium, magnesiufu, tin, silicon), Benda and Lutz (copper, brass, bronze, c Technische Hochschule, Wien (Professor R. Kieffer); Montanistische Hochschule, Leoben (Professor R. Mitsche); the University of Innsbruck (Professor E. Cremer and Professor E. Hayek); the Reaktorzentrum, Seibersdorf (Dr. P. Koss, Dr. F. H. Bildstein); and the laboratories and research and development departments of the above-mentioned firms which together form a kind of Austrian research group for powder metallurgy. In spite of the great tradition in the production of the pure refractory metals, alloy research in the field of the refractory metals tungsten, molybdenum, tantalum, niobium, and rhenium has been undertaken in Austrian laboratories on a considerable scale. For example, systematic investigations have been carried out on the systems tantalum-tungsten, niobium-tungsten, tantalum-molybdenum, niobium-molybdenum, molybdenum-nio bium-rhenium,molybdenum-nio bium-osmium, osmium-rhenium, molybdenum-niobium-titanium, and tantalum-hafnium. Major commercial successes, however, were achieved only with the X-ray targets composed of molybdenum or tungsten clad with tungsten-rhenium alloys, whose great ductility had been recognized earlier by Geach and Hughes in Great Britain. After the U.S.A., Austria is at present probably the largest rhenium user in the world.