Correlation Between NDE Measurements and Physical Properties of Copper Powder Metallurgy Components

摘要

Square D, a world leader in the manufacturing of electrical components and systems, needed to insure it was using only high quality powdered metal (PM) components in one of its ’ line of circuit breakers products. Low strength powdered metal components had been detected by routine destructive testing practices which subsequently rejected entire lots of product. Although the occurrence of a failure was infrequent, Square D felt that improvements in both the design of the part and method of inspection could be implemented. As a result, the part design was improved which made all of the parts acceptable all of the time with respect to break strength level. Square D was still troubled by the fact that, even though all of the parts were now acceptable, there was still a very low percentage of parts that exhibited lower than average strength.