Dear Members, 

We are thrilled to present the latest updates and news from our association in this edition of our newsletter.  

From an accounting standpoint, 2023 has been a better year than 2022. The financial gains will be thoroughly discussed during the upcoming General Assembly. Notably, this income has played a crucial role in replenishing part of EPMA’s reserves, which were depleted during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is worth mentioning that these earnings are a result of EPMA’s concerted efforts to streamline costs while maintaining the quality of our activities. Looking ahead to 2024, the EPMA team is eager to resume participation in third-party events across Europe, reconnecting with the community.  

We are excited to announce that preparations for our next congress in Malmö, are well underway. Our dedicated team is working to ensure another memorable event. The Technical Program Committee convened in an online meeting to curate the best papers and abstracts for each thematic strand. Registrations for booth spaces and sponsorship packages are still available. This year, we are introducing a “Swedish Pavilion” and dedicated spaces with small stands for companies looking to explore the event as exhibitors. Additionally, registrations for our Industry Corner and Camp Fire sessions will open soon, providing an excellent opportunity to showcase your products and services to an engaged audience. In 2024, we are reintroducing the prestigious “Component Award” and hosting the second edition of the recently launched “Sustainability Award”.  Moreover, our plenary sessions will feature keynote speakers from prominent Swedish organizations such as Jernkontoret and Volvo.  

Our seminar lineup for 2024 is diverse and insightful. For the first time, EPMA will host an Application Seminar, starting with a focus on nuclear energy. These application seminars aim to bring together various sectors, from HIP to AM, FM, MIM, P&S or HM, around common topics of interest. Additionally, we will collaborate with third parties for the benefit of the PM community, offering discounts to EPMA members for selected events. Classic seminars on AM or HM, as well as webinars, are also on the agenda for 2024. You can find details of all events on the EPMA website under the Events section. Stay tuned for more information and save the dates.  

We are delighted to announce that our brand-new website is now operational, offering easier and more intuitive access to information. While the “Members Only” section will be available later this year, please feel free to contact EPMA staff directly if you require access to data such as annual statistics.  

Thank you for being an integral part of our community, and we eagerly anticipate an outstanding year ahead. Should you have any questions or require further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.  

Warm regards, 

Lionel Aboussouan

EPMA Executive Director

The Euro PM2024 Congress & Exhibition is taking place from 29 September to 02 October 2024 at Malmömässan, Malmö, Sweden.  

Malmö is the third-largest city in Sweden, located in the southern part of the country, across the Öresund strait from Copenhagen, Denmark. Known for its vibrant cultural scene, stunning architecture, and diverse population, Malmö offers a unique blend of modernity and history. Malmö is also recognized for its sustainable urban development initiatives and is often cited as an example of a green city. With its rich cultural heritage, thriving culinary scene, and dynamic atmosphere, Malmö is a popular destination for tourists and residents alike. 

The Euro PM2024 Congress & Exhibition is being held at MalmöMässan, a modern event centre, easily reachable from the city centre. The railway station is 3 minutes away from the centre and from there you can reach Copenhagen Airport in 12 minutes. 

Euro PM2024 Congress – Technical Programme Committee Meeting 

On 08 February 2024, the Technical Programme Committee (TPC) met online to set up the programme for the Euro PM2024 Congress. Over 60 PM experts from industry and academia from all over Europe reviewed the submitted abstracts.  

EPMA received a total of 254 abstracts for EuroPM2024 (233 Oral presentations and 21 Poster presentations) mostly from Europe (89.1%). The very high-quality of the submitted papers allowed the TPC members to create a high number of sessions (50 sessions on 3 days) covering a wide range of topics within powder metallurgy. Full details of the programme will be released in May 2024 with the registration opening in parallel at www.europm2024.com 

Euro PM2024 Exhibition   

The Euro PM2024 Exhibition, held from Monday to Wednesday, will take place alongside the Congress. With exhibition sales already open, EPMA welcomes enquiries to fill the remaining space in the 5000m2 Exhibition Hall. Those looking to join the Exhibition are encouraged to do so as soon as possible, as prices for stands will increase on 1st May 2024 – reserve your space now to ensure your early discount is applied.  

Located within the conference centre, with an easy access to the Technical Sessions, delegate lunches and refreshment facilities, the Euro PM2024 Exhibition will be the ideal location for positive and profitable delegate and exhibitor integration. 

New features for 2024 include the Sweden Pavilion, an area dedicated to showcasing Sweden’s PM industry, and the New at Euro PM Exhibition Stands – smaller, one desk stands available at lower rates for those new to Euro PM. More details on these areas can be found here.

Further information on this year’s event, including a current exhibition floor plan, or to sign up to join the Euro PM2024 Mailing List, to receive Euro PM2024 Congress & Exhibition Updates can all be found at www.europm2024.com 

EPMA PM Thesis Competition Launch  

The EPMA PM Thesis Competition takes place annually. Following a strong number of entries for the 2023 competition, we are expecting a high standard of entries for Euro PM2024.   

This competition is open to all graduates of a European University whose theses have been officially accepted or approved by the applicant’s teaching establishment during the previous three years. Theses, which must be classified under the topic of Powder Metallurgy, are judged by an international panel of PM experts, drawn from both academia and industry. Winners are awarded an honorarium and complimentary registration to the Congress.  

More information can be found at www.thesiscompetition.epma.com

The deadline for submissions is 24 April 2024.  

 

Modelling of Induction Hardening  

As mentioned in the report from the EuroPress&Sinter Sectoral Group, RWTH Aachen presented there a proposal for a new Club Project, named InducSim, that could be rather interesting for Press&Sinter producers, but also for powder makers and equipment manufacturers, focused on modelling of the Induction Hardening process. If you are interested and would like to have more details, please contact Bruno Vicenzi at bv@epma.com. 

HUM-FLOW 

The Club project HUM-FLOW organized by Sectoral group of Additive Manufacturing EuroAM will have its final meeting on 24th of April at EPMA’s office in Chantilly. The project is contracted by Fraunhofer IFAM in Bremen. The project aims at getting a better understanding of the correlation between particle size, particle morphology, specific surface area, alloy composition and the adsorption of water in metal powders when exposed to different air humidity levels. 

START is making progress towards new thermoelectric devices 

The Horizon Europe project START (“Sustainable energy harvesting systems based on innovative mine waste recycling”), dealing with thermoelectric materials made from mine waste minerals (sulphides like the tetrahedrites) and to be used in waste heat recovery devices, has continued this hear, and many results will soon be available on the materials developed. 

EPMA is mainly involved in the dissemination of the outcomes of the project, and is currently active both in preparing new materials and new events. 

A new issue of the “RECOVER-REFORM-REUSE” newsletter is being prepared, and it will be the 4th issue. If you have missed any previous issues, you can find them all on the project website. 

START will be present in a booth organised by the funding agency HaDEA at the world geology exhibition PDAC 2024; then later a presentation will be given during the EPMA General Assembly in May. In early June, the consortium will meet in Oslo for the annual assembly, and in July, a demonstration concerning thermoelectric devices is being prepared, to be given to the participants of the EPMA Summer School in Alessandria, in July. 

START is also liaising with other projects and took part in the final workshop of the InComEss project, as a part of the ERHASE cluster dedicated to energy harvesting, on 31st January; and will liaise now with the EraNet project THERMOS led by TU Dresden. 

But the closest interesting activity is the 4th free webinar, that will be held on 14th March, and that will focus on the powder metallurgical processing of thermoelectric materials, and their assessment. The presenters are Serena Busatto (MBN Nanomaterialia), Damian Karpowicz (GeniCore) and Patricia Almeida Carvalho (Sintef). It will be possible to register until the start of the webinar, so everyone is invited to join: please refer to the website or the LinkedIn advertisement. 

If you are interested in the project, check out its website www.START-HEproject.com, and find out more; you can follow also on X, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. Subscribing to the mailing list on the website will allow to directly receive news about the project, and in particular the newsletter. 

 

RESQTOOL Partners Meet In France For The Kick-Off Meeting

RESQTOOL is a Horizon Europe project, including most of the main EU cutting tool producers, that aims to deliver an efficient and sustainable solution for recycling End of Life cemented carbide cutting tools in metal/wood cutting, construction and manufacturing industries. This will guarantee a responsible supply of Critical Raw Materials (in particular Co, W, Ta, Ti, Nb) for the EU, thereby reducing import and improving circularity, thus fulfilling the requirements of the recent EU acts, like the Raw Materials Act. Sustainability will be achieved by lowering the carbon footprint of the existing Zinc Reclaim process and developing advanced hydro- and solvo-metallurgical chemical recycling based on agro-industrial waste-bioderived chemicals.

RESQTOOL Partners Meet In France For The Kick-Off Meeting. EPMA, the project coordinator, hosted the Kick-Off meeting on 13th December 2023, in Chantilly, France. All partners, which are industrial organisations, Research Centers as well as Universities, participated to ensure a straight collaboration and strategies alignment for the successful implementation of the project. 

The news about the project can be followed by subscribing on the project’s website www.resqtool.eu and by following its social media accounts, on LinkedIn , X and YouTube.

ADDress

The ADDress project consortium organized a series of online sessions for training the trainers based on the curriculum already developed by the project partners. EPMA contributed to the program with 4 hours of lecturing on the modules of “Standardization in AM” and “Cost Analysis in AM”. The lectures will also be available on an online platform with videos and other course materials by CEV, the project coordinator.

EPMA for new projects 

EPMA ‘s technical managers are always actively working for next rounds of calls for European projects, like Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, and others. If you are planning to organize proposals for funding on a topic, EPMA can surely be your partner for Dissemination, Coordination, and more. Do not hesitate to contact our technical managers Kenan Boz (kboz@epma.com) and Bruno Vicenzi (bv@epma.com). 

EuroAM

Annual AM Trends Survey 2024 has been live by the 20^th of February 2023 at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/AMSurvey2024 . The aim of the survey is to collect and present information on the AM industry to track the general trends of the Additive Manufacturing Sector in terms of recent sales trends, business attitudes and effect of the new state of global economy. The results will be presented at the general assembly of EPMA, and the plenary session of EuroPM congress in Lisbon. Deadline for taking the survey is 29^th of March.

EuroFM  

The Functional Materials group is already working on the preparation of the Special Interest Seminars to be held at Euro PM2024 in Malmö. The Steering Committee has imagined two topics for the sessions: 

• Initiatives on Hard Magnets for the Future 
• Biomedical Functional Materials 

Both sectors are indeed experiencing big news and updating the views on these in the congress will be very interesting. 

EuroFM is also working on a second edition of the “Introduction to Functional Materials“ booklet, whose first edition was produced in 2021, with the objective of publishing it in 2025. One of the main tasks will be collecting new case studies, so if you have any case study to contribute, feel free to contact EPMA. 

EuroHIP

As a part of EPMA’s data collection for its statistics on Powder Metallurgy Industry, HIP Trends Survey is now available online until 29^th of March to from https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HIPSurvey2024. The period for this year’s survey is the full year of 2023 from January to December. Results of the survey will only be available to the participants as a full report, in addition to being presented during EPMA’s General Assembly and EuroHIP sectoral group meeting at EuroPM 2024 Congress & Exhibition in Malmö, Sweden.

EuroHIP organizes a seminar with the support of other sectoral groups in the field of Energy. The energy seminar will be hosted by University of Burgundy in Le Creusot, France. The Seminar’s specific subject is the use of HIP and other PM technologies in Nuclear Energy. Experts from the field will give 11 interesting presentations. The event also consists of a very special site visit to Framatome Technical Center. Framatome is the leading company of Nuclear Energy based in France.

EuroMIM 

EuroMIM is working now on the new Special Interest Seminars that will be hosted in the Congress Euro PM2024 in Sweden. The choice of the Steering Committee has fallen on the two following titles: 

• Improvements in MIM Feedstock Portfolio 
• MIM Green Parts Optimisation 

Speakers are being contacted and more information will be given in next newsletters. 

The usual yearly Trend, Statistics and Benchmarking survey about the status and outlook of the European MIM industry has just been launched and the maximum participation of parts producers is necessary. 

The group is also committed to support the efforts to try starting some collaborative work in the field of sustainability of the MIM process, in collaboration with the German MIM Expertenkreis, and the Japanese Powder Metallurgy Association (JPMA), and, in perspective, all other interested associations. If you are interested in joining the efforts on sustainability, please contact Bruno Vicenzi (bv@epma.com). 

EuroMIM is also starting to work on a new edition of the “Introduction to Metal Injection Moulding” brochure, that will need some update in terms of content and case studies. 

 

EuroPress&Sinter 

EuroPress&Sinter is also working for the organisation of two SIS sessions to be held at the Euro PM2024 congress. The topics imagined are: 

• Quality Challenges for Press&Sinter Parts 
• Reliability of SMCs 

An idea of Club Project among EPMA members on modelling of Induction Hardening, InducSim, was presented in Euro PM2023 by RWTH Aachen. Some members declared their interest, but more companies are needed to create a consortium (most probably part makers and powder makers). Even non-European members can express their interest and take part. If you are also interested, please contact Bruno Vicenzi at bv@epma.com. 

The usual Statistics surveys on powders and parts, plus the Trend survey for parts, are running, with the deadline on 29th March. 

Some members of EuroPress&Sinter are presently involved in helping organise the upcoming Applications workshop devoted to automotive, that is supposed to take place within CTI 2024, a powertrain conference and exhibition, that will happen in December 2024. Details will come later in the year. 

Training webinar “Powder Metallurgy for the Green Transition” 

EPMA wants to stress the importance of PM in the Green Transition by introducing a new line of training. It will be a series of webinars, each one as a standalone event, but all covering different aspects. Especially young engineers and researchers, and end users, that want to be updated on the opportunities given by PM technologies could benefit from these events. Depending on the success of the initiative, there will be one or more sessions every year with different topics, or updates on previous topics. 

The starting format for Session 1, that will be held in the morning of 20th March, comprises 3 lectures by invited experts: Daniel Edman (Höganäs AB) on “Sustainability of PM”, Prof. Dr. Carlo Burkhardt (Hochschule Pforzheim) on “Recycling of hard magnets”, and Dr. Ing. Felix Heubner (Fraunhofer IFAM Dresden) on “PM for hydrogen storage applications”.  

At the end of the session there will be an evaluation test (tick box style) that will lead to a certificate for each participant issued by EPMA. 

It is still possible to join (https://seminars.epma.com/event/powder-metallurgy-in-the-green-transition-session-1/); a small participant fee is due (EPMA members 50 €, Non-members 100 €). 

Register until 19th March, and come and learn about PM as a green technology! 

Young Engineer’s Day

Introduced 10 years ago in 2014, the Young Engineers Days event is run by the European Powder Metallurgy Association (EPMA) as part of our commitment to help foster and develop the next generation of PM academics and industrialists. This two-day event helps to raise awareness and interest in Powder Metallurgy (PM) careers amongst young engineers. Sponsored by HILTI group and open to 50 students, Young Engineers Days is a free-to-attend event for participants studying subjects related to PM, such as Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Engineering, and Business Administration & Engineering. Young Engineers Days 2024 will take place on 30 September & 1st October 2024, at Malmömässan, in Malmö, Sweden during the Euro PM2024 Congress & Exhibition. Registration will open on 29  March 2024. More information on Young Engineers Days – Website (epma.com) 

 

Summer School

The European Powder Metallurgy Association will hold its 22nd Powder Metallurgy Summer School in Alessandria, Italy, from 15 to 19 July 2024 at the Chamber of Commerce. This event is organized in collaboration with the Politecnico di Torino School.

The five-day programme will be hosted and coordinated by Dr Christian Gierl-Mayer, TU Wien, Austria, and Dr Marco Actis-Grande, Politecnico di Torino, Italy, who is also the host this year.

The programme will be delivered by a range of specialists from both industry and academia, whose expertise reflect many key topics currently being employed in today’s Powder Metallurgy industry. It is a rare opportunity to stimulate direct technical discussions by young scientists and engineers who are interested in broadening their knowledge through interaction with senior figures in the PM industry.

The course includes group problem solving sessions and laboratory work. More information about the programme are available on the event website. The Summer Schools also include some social events such as the Welcome Reception always held on Monday evening and its networking dinner.

Applications for the Summer School 2024 are open. Please visit our website for more information: https://summerschool.epma.com/

Application deadline : 1 May 2024