Lighter Metal Powder components with complex designs can bring substantial cost savings for car manufacturers and system suppliers in the automotive industry. Through a newly formed cooperation, Höganäs and Dontyne Gears offer a complete package of services with the aim to drastically improve driveline solutions.
 
Cutting weight both from electric and traditional internal combustion engine and driveline solution vehicles continues to be a major focus for the automotive industry. Getting more miles per gallon and increasing the range of plug-in vehicles to relieve range anxiety will be a key for carmakers to differentiate as the whole industry is being disrupted into the era of electrification.
 
“We help car manufacturers and system suppliers design, test and prototype new, light-weight Metal Powder driveline solutions that are a much better fit for the hybridisation and electrification of the automotive industry,” says Eckart Schneider, director powder metallurgy (PM) business development at Höganäs AB.
 
“As materials and production techniques continuously improve, there are many applications that benefit from being looked at again to find much simpler and more cost-efficient alternatives,” says Mike Fish, CEO of Dontyne Gears Ltd.
 
The push towards light-weight materials brings new opportunities to create completely new solutions. In this context, the two companies’ cooperation makes perfect sense. Höganäs has a deep and vast materials knowledge and experience of Metal Powder component applications for automotive driveline solutions, while Dontyne Gears is an expert in uniting gearing and system design, and manufacturing practices to reduce time and resources and promote efficient production in the gear industry.
 
“Our cooperation with Dontyne Gears means we can become even better partners for our customers in developing and prototyping PM components in general and drivelines in particular,” Schneider says.
 
Dontyne Gears contributes with system design analysis, manufacture of machined prototypes and benchtesting of gears with a very flexible test rig.
 
“Car manufacturers will benefit greatly when switching to components made out of PM instead of solid steel. We see a number of new applications where PM brings big advantages, such as weight and inertia as well as noise reduction,” Fish says.
 
The two companies have started a joint concept development towards hybridising a pick-up truck to take advantage of PM gearing and electrical motor solutions. So far, the project shows promising development and could potentially have a big impact on a large scale for design-optimised drivetrains based on Metal Powder solutions.