Ceramic micro parts produced by micro injection molding: latest developments

Abstract

Powder injection molding is a preferred technology for the production of micro parts or microstructured parts. Derived from the well known thermoplastic injection molding technique it is suitable for a large-scale production of ceramic and metallic parts without final machining. To achieve good surface quality and control the part size and distortions is an important goal to allow mass production. This means that all process steps like part design adjusted for MIM/CIM-technology, appropriate choice of powder and binder components and injection molding simulation to design the sprue are required. Concerning the injection molding itself high quality mold inserts, high-precision injection molding with suitable molding machines like Battenfeld Microsystem50 or standard machine with special equipment like variotherm or evacuation of the molding tool and an adjusted debinding and sintering process have to be available. Results of producing micro parts by powder injection molding of ceramic feedstock will be presented.

Advanced Manufacturing of Hard Ceramics

“…Moreover, some progress toward mold filling simulation has been made (Moritz, 2010;Muller, 2010). An additional field may arise from joining different material systems during the forming stage by two-component-injection molding (Ruh, 2011).…”

Powder injection moulding of multi-material devices

“…The great advantage is that finer powders enable sharper reliefs and better surface qualities. 28,29 Tools for In-mould Labelling require auxiliary features for inserting and fixation of the foils. However, as the technique is derived from plastics processing, appropriate tooling know how is available.…”

A review of micro-powder injection moulding as a microfabrication technique

“…Basic requirements for binder systems include [5,21,31,39,62,85]: a relatively low viscosity to ensure complete filling of mould micro-cavities, relatively high mechanical stability to ensure safe demoulding, good shape retention and lower shrinkage during debinding and sintering. In addition, the binder has to wet the powder particles completely to avoid agglomeration and shrinkage cavities.…”