A need has been felt for quite some time for a textbook exclusively on powder metallurgy technology for students as well as practising engineers. There are books on scientific aspects of powder metallurgy, but details of technological aspects are not available. The emphasis has been not to treat the present book as a handbook, but as a handy textbook. The existing books either deal with the subject too elaborately or leave out some of the recent but important technological developments. Although this is essentially a textbook, it is presented it in such a way that it will also be of use to designers and engineers in a variety of fields. The author has not included details of sintered alloys and products in order to contain the book within reasonable proportions. These topics shall be discussed by the author in another future publication. The boundary between powder metallurgy and ceramic technology is gradually getting difficult to be drawn. With this in view, the book can be of use to ceramic engineering students as well. The detailed outline of various chapters in the book is given in Chapter 1 (Introduction). The overview of the subject has sufficient breadth for an introductory course while providing enough depth to prepare a student for further study.
