Product Development

The outset of the 21st century is a most exciting time for the powder metallurgy industry for its rapid evolution of PM technologies and the more demanding applications. Because of this complex environment and in line with our company policy, RTMP invests numerous resources to support product innovation that meets our customers’ current needs and their evolving technical requirements.

For RTMP, product innovation means designing new material systems capable of meeting the changing engineering requirements of parts such as bearing caps, connecting rods, and transmission gears, to name only a few examples. Product innovation also means enlarging the overall scope of PM applications by developing new generations of powders for emerging technologies such as electromagnetic applications and soil remediation. Finally, product innovation means upgrading and fine tuning processes and products currently on the market.

To support our R&D team and its product design activities, Rio Tinto Metal Powders has developed R&D alliances with many technical partners: customers, universities and research institutes in Canada, China, the United States and Europe. These alliances cover a wide variety of projects on powder processing, product characterisation, and new applications.