Under the arrangement, Crucible Industries will manufacture the CPM grades at its steel mill Solvay, NY, USA and Latrobe Specialty Steel Distribution will sell the products through its eight locations in North America.
The Crucible Particle Metallurgy (CPM) process makes it possible to produce higher alloyed grades which cannot be produced by conventional steelmaking.
The CPM process begins with a homogeneous molten bath similar to conventional melting, but instead of being teemed into ingot moulds, the molten metal is poured through a small nozzle where high pressure gas bursts the liquid stream into a spray of tiny spherical droplets which solidify and collect as powder particles.
"Latrobe Distribution offers everything we wanted in a partner for our CPM grades of steel," said James Beckman, President of Crucible Industries. "They have the infrastructure, the market knowledge, and the service reputation we were looking for."
Crucible Industries LLC was recently purchased by JP Industries of Cleveland, Ohio, and is the only manufacturer of CPM. It also produces stainless and other specialty steels.