Metal and Ceramic Micro Components Made by Powder Injection Molding

Abstract

To overcome the lack of micro manufacturing processes suitable for medium and large scale production as well as to process high resistive materials a special variant of micro injection molding is currently under development: micro powder injection molding (MicroPIM), which already enables the manufacturing of finest detailed components with structure sizes down to a few ten micrometer. In order to expand the scope of application of MicroPIM, tests are being conducted with pure tungsten powders or tungsten alloy powders. As further improvement, micro twocomponent injection molding allows, for example, the fabrication of micro components consisting of two ceramic materials with different physical properties.

Algorithm for Improvement of a Wrongly Adverted Filling Profile in Injection Flow

“…Short-Shot of Experiment from 58 to 65 mm 3 Simulation Result Figure 9. Detail of runners and micro-component [9]: (a) floating die cavity insert for micro-injection designed for the Battenfeld injection machine; (b) geometry of the ejector; and (c) injection channels and moving die mold cavity.…”

“…Feedstock injected volumes vary from 58 to 65 mm 3 . The comparison between results from the experiment and the improved simulation are shown in Table 1.…”

“…Short-shots have been achieved for the injection process of a feedstock composed of binders PP, PW, and surfactant SA with a low density of 316L stainless steel metal powder. Feedstock injected volumes vary from 58 to 65 mm 3 . The comparison between results from the experiment and the improved simulation are shown in Table 1.…”

“…With the development of injection molding techniques, the shape of the parts is increasingly complex [3]. Due to the constraints in physical experiments and the availability of measurements for micro-scale factors, the accurate numerical simulation becomes more and more important in designing and manufacturing [4].…”

Optimization of ceramic manufacturing process using Plackett-Burman design of experiment

“…Nevertheless, before any optimization of the feedstock preparation process, it is needed to know, determine and control the parameters of injection molding process. We can optimize the raw material only using a stabile, robust, properly adjusted injection molding machine, and therefore, the material properties and the producing process will be set for this optimized injection molding process, to decrease the amount of cracked ceramics [3][4][5]. Namely, in the present case, the output parameter eventually will be the injection molded, sintered parts, and their quality, and if the different materials are tested using a non-optimized injection molding process, then the injection molding will be only noise factor in the material experiments [6].…”