John J. Croat and Masato Sagawa simultaneously and independently invented the world’s most powerful permanent magnet, the neodymium (NdFeB) magnet, and established two different manufacturing methods to produce it. Their achievement is recognized by the 2023 Honda Prize, awarded by the Honda Foundation. This article highlights each inventor’s research contributions.

The manufacture of electric motors using additive methods offers potential advantages of increased efficiency, weight reduction, and customizability over traditional processes. This article describes some key developments and challenges related to additively manufactured electric motors in terms of manufacturing, materials development, and design.

A temperature management system is essential to accurately monitor and control the heat treating process for maximum productivity and product quality.

Cold spray is an effective method of depositing a variety of temperature-sensitive materials in specialized applications, such as high-value aerospace component repair. The use of cold spray has seen a significant increase in the repair and restoration of housings for integrated drive generators used in commercial aircraft.

Induction coils are considered the weakest link in an induction hardening system, so advanced designs and precise fabrication are paramount to ensure long life while producing high quality treated parts. This article describes material selection and fabrication techniques for conventional inductors and new breakthrough designs.

Acoustic microscopes pulse ultrasound into a sample and use the return echoes to find and image cracks, delaminations, and other gap-type flaws in manufactured parts and products. New developments in microscope technology enable mapping of the point-by-point contour of tilted or warped interfaces, as well as individual material layer thicknesses. This article includes an example of mapping of buried layers in power insulated gate bipolar transistor modules used in railroad engines, heavy mining equipment, and electric automobiles.

Emissivity is a term used to define the ability of a surface to emit and absorb radiation. At any given temperature, the emissivity of a body (or surface) equals its absorptivity. Development work on a vacuum carburizing process revealed the need to better understand the effect of workload surface emissivity and the proper use of dummy thermocouple test blocks. This article reports on the findings from this research effort.

Thermal spraying is being incorporated into more manufacturing processes where its primary role is to deposit a layer of material or a free-standing structure that has a functional, rather than a passive, role. Examples include thermally sprayed membranes, electrodes, antennas, thermocouples, inductors, and electrical contacts.

Acoustic microscopy is an effective method for detecting voids in plastic-encapsulated microcircuit (PEM) packages.