There is an increasing demand for powder metallurgy complex parts with a relatively simple and economical process in high volume production.Warm flow compaction based on warm compaction and metal injection molding is a new net-shape manufacturing technology which can produce complex powder metallurgy (PM) parts by conventional axial-pressing.Warm flow compaction makes use of improved flowability of powder binder mixture in an appropriate temperature to form complex PM-parts,like cross-shaped parts.A special apparatus for measuring the lateral flow capability perpendicular to the pressing direction of the powders was designed and manufactured.It can be used to analyse the feasibility of forming complex cross-shaped parts.The effect of the combination of coarse and fine powders on apparent density and flowability as well as the effect of different pressing speed and temperature on lateral flow capacity of iron-based powders were investigated.Results showed that apparent density increases with free powder fractions increase,transverse pressure becomes larger when pressing speeds raised.The transverse pressure increases when the temperature of powder binder mixture approaches the melting point of the binder and the lubricant.The transverse pressure decreases as lateral-distance increases.In this study,cross-shaped powder metallurgy parts by warm flow compaction were produced successfully.