Nanopowders provide better details for micro features and surface finish in powder injection molding processes. However, the small size of such powders induces processing challenges, such as low solid loading, high feedstock viscosity, difficulty in debinding, and distinctive sintering behavior. Therefore, the optimization of process conditions for nanopowder injection molding is essential, and it should be carefully performed. In this study, the powder injection molding process for Fe nanopowder has been optimized. The feedstock has been formulated using commercially available Fe nanopowder and a wax-based binder system. The optimal solid loading has been determined from the critical solid loading, measured by a torque rheometer. The homogeneously mixed feedstock is injected as a cylindrical green body, and solvent and thermal debinding conditions are determined by observing the weight change of the sample. The influence of the sintering temperature and holding time on the density has also been investigated. Thereafter, the Vickers hardness and grain size of the sintered samples have been measured to optimize the sintering conditions.

A powder injection molding process is developed and optimized for piezoelectric PAN-PZT ceramics. Torque rheometer experiments are conducted to determine the optimal solids loading, and the rheological property of the feedstock is evaluated using a capillary rheometer. Appropriate debinding conditions are chosen using a thermal gravity analyzer, and the debound specimens are sintered using sintering conditions determined in a preliminary investigation. Piezoelectric performance measures, including the piezoelectric charge constant and dielectric constant, are measured to verify the developed process. The average values of the measured piezoelectric charge constant and dielectric constant are 455 pC/N and 1904, respectively. Powder injection molded piezoelectric ceramics produced by the optimized process show adequate piezoelectric performance compared to press-sintered piezoelectric ceramics.

Powder injection molding (PIM), which combines the advantages of powder metallurgy and plastic injection molding technologies, has become one of the most efficient methods for the net-shape production of both metal and ceramic components. In this work, plasma display panel glass bodies are prepared by the PIM process. After sintering, the hot isostatic pressing (HIP) process is adopted for improving the density and mechanical properties of the PIMed glass bodies. The mechanical and thermal behaviors of the prepared specimens are analyzed through bending tests and dilatometric analysis, respectively. After HIPing, the flexural strength of the prepared glass body reaches up to 92.17 MPa, which is 1.273 and 2.178 times that of the fused glass body and PIMed bodies, respectively. Moreover, a thermal expansion coefficient of 7.816 × 10−6/oC is obtained, which coincides with that of the raw glass powder (7.5-8.0 × 10−6/oC), indicating that the glass body is fully densified after the HIP process.

The powder injection molding process having advantages in manufacturing three-dimensional precision parts essentially requires a debinding process before sintering to remove the binders used for preparing feedstock. In this study, powder injection molding of translucent alumina was performed, and carbon dioxide (CO2) is used as a supercritical fluid that makes it possible to remove a large amount of binder, which is paraffin wax. The relationship between the optical property of translucent alumina and the debinding condition (temperature and pressure) of supercritical CO2 was investigated. As temperature and pressure increased, extraction rate of the binder showed rising tendency and average grain size after sintering process was relatively fine. On the other hand, optical transmittance was reduced. As a result, the debinding condition at 50˚C and 20 MPa that represents the lowest extraction rate, 8.19x10-3m2/sec, corresponds to the largest grain size of 14.7μm and the highest optical transmittance of 45.2%.

Translucent alumina is a potential candidate for high temperature application as a replacement of the glassor polymer. Recently, due to the increasing demand of high power light emitting diode (LED), there is a growing inter-est in the translucent alumina. Since the translucent property is very sensitive to the internal defect, such as voids insideor abnormal grain growth of sintered alumina, it is important to fabricate the defect-free product through the fabricationprocess. Powder injection molding (PIM) has been commonly applied for the fabrication of complex shaped products.Among the many parameters of PIM, the flowability of powder/binder mixture becomes more significant especially forthe shape of the cavity with thin thickness. Two different positions of the gate were applied during PIM using the disctype of die. The binder was removed by solvent extraction method and the brown compact was sintered at 1750oC for3 hours in a vacuum. The flowability was also simulated using moldflow (MPI 6.0) with two different types of gate.The effect of the flowability of powder/binder mixture on the microstructure of the sintered specimen was studied withthe analysis of the simulation result.

Tool steels serve a large range of applications including hot and cold workings of metals and injection mouldings of plastics or light alloys. The high speed steels (HSS) are specifically used as cutting tools and wear parts because it has high strength, wear resistance and hardness along with appreciable toughness and fatigue resistance. From the view of HSS microstructure, it can be described as metallic matrix composites formed by a ferrous with a dispersion of hard and wear resistant carbides. The experimental specimens were manufactured using the PIM with T42 powders (50~80 vol.%) and polymer (20~50 vol.%). The green parts were debinded in n-hexane solution at for 8 hours and thermal debinded at an mixed gas atmosphere for 8 hours. Specimens were sintered in high vacuum ( Torr) and various temperatures.

High speed steels (HSS) were used as cutting tools and wear parts, because of high strength, wear resistance, and hardness together with an appreciable toughness and fatigue resistance. Conventional manufacturing process for production of components with HSS was used by casting. The powder metallurgy techniques were currently developed due to second phase segregation of conventional process. The powder injection molding method (PIM) was received attention owing to shape without additional processes. The experimental specimens were manufactured with T42 HSS powders (59 vol%) and polymer (41 vol%). The metal powders were prealloyed water-atomised T42 HSS. The green parts were solvent debinded in normal n-Hexane at for 24 hours and thermal debinded at mixed gas atmosphere for 14 hours. Specimens were sintered in , gas atmosphere and vacuum condition between 1200 and . In result, polymer degradation temperatures about optimum conditions were found at and . After sintering at gas atmosphere, maximum hardness of 310Hv was observed at . Fine and well dispersed carbide were observed at this condition. But relative density was under 90%. When sintering at gas atmosphere, relative density was observed to 94.5% at . However, the low hardness was obtained due to decarbonization by hydrogen. In case of sintering at the vacuum of torr at temperature of , full density and 550Hv hardness were obtained without precipitation of MC and in grain boundary.

W-Cu alloy was very useful material for a heat sink, high electric contact and EDM electrode. Powder injection molding (PIM) is the optimum manufacturing technology to provide W-Cu components with low-cost and high-volume. We used various compositions of tungsten coated copper powders (W-Cu with 10 to 80 wt-% of copper) to manufacture W-Cu components by PIM. The optimum mixing, injection molding, debinding and sintering conditions to provide the high performance W-Cu components were investigated. The thermal and mechanical properties of W-Cu parts by PIM were measured. Finally, we can verify the high performance of W-Cu components by PIM with the tungsten coated copper.

This study is focused on the manufacturing technique of powder injection molding of watch case made from zirconia powder. A series of computer simulation processes were applied to the prediction of the flow pattern in the inside of the mould and defects as weld-line. The material properties of melted feedstock, including the PVT graph and thermal viscosity flowage properties were measured to obtain the input data to be used in a computer simulation. Also, a molding experiment was conducted and the results of the experiment showed a good agreement with the simulation results for flow pattern and weld line location. On the other hand, gravity and inertia effects have an influence on the velocity of the melt front because of the high density of ceramic powder particles during powder injection molding in comparison with polymer's injection molding process. In the experiment, the position of the melt front was compared with the upper gate and lower gate positions. The gravity and inertia effect could be confirmed in the experimental results.

With the capability of net shaping for complex 3D geometry, powder injection molding (PIM) is widely used for automotive parts, electronics and medical industry. In this study, an ultrasonic dental scaler tip produced by machining process was redesigned for the PIM process. An injection mold was designed and machined to produce the dental scaler tip by the PIM process.

Chip breaker of cutting tool is an important feature to enhance cutting performance. Powder injection molding process was used to produce a triangular-shape cermet grooving insert which has three chip breakers. Attrition milled cermet powders were mixed with wax-based binder system in continuous twin screw extruder. Three-plate injection mold with slide cores was used to produce injection-molded parts. After molding, solvent and thermal debinding was carried out. Sintering was conducted in a batch furnace with a graphite heater. The sintered parts satisfy the requirements of dimensional tolerances and material properties.

Powder injection molding (PIM) is a suitable technology for the fabrication of complex shape titanium and its alloys, and has a great potential in many applications. This paper dealt with the injection molding of hydride dehydrogenization (HDH) titanium powder, spheroidized HDH titanium powder and gas atomized titanium powder. Rheological and thermalgravimetric behaviors were compared between the feedstocks of the three powders, and a tentative application of Ti PIM to eye frame temple and bridge was briefed.

Production components fabricated by metal powder injection molding are analyzed for features to identify the design window for this powder technology. This reverse approach lets the designer see where PIM has a high probability to succeed. The findings show that the most suitable components tend to be less than 25 mm in size and less than 10 g in mass, are slender, and have high complexity.

In this experimental work, the development of a multicomponent binder system based on high density polyethylene (HDPE) and paraffin wax for Powder Injection Molding of Alumina parts was carried out. The optimum composition of the injection mixture was established through mixing torque measurements and a rheological study. The maximum powder loading was 58 vol%. The miscibility of organic components and the optimum injection temperature was evaluated by thermal characterization of binder and feedstock. The thermal debinding cycle was developed on the basis of thermogravimetrical analysis of the binder. After sintering the densities achieved were closed to 98% of the theoretical one.

A novel production method for porous metal components has been developed by applying powder space holder (PSH) method to metal powder injection molding (MIM) process. The PSH-MIM method has an industrial competitive advantage that is capable of net-shape manufacturing the micro-sized porous metal products with complicated shapes and controlled porosity and pore size. In this study, the small impeller with homogeneous micro-porous structure was manufactured by the PSH-MIM method. The effects of combinations in size and fraction of PMMA particle on dimensional tolerance and variation of sintered porous specimens were investigated. It was concluded that the PSH-MIM method could manufacture commercially microporous metal components with high dimensional accuracy.

In recent years, micro powder injection molding is being explored as an economical fabrication method for microcomponents in microsystems technology (MST). Technical and economic comparison was performed for processes. Molding experiment and simulation during the filling process were performed to evaluate several different geometries and processing conditions. The influence of material parameters and process conditions on mold filling were examined as a function of features size using microchannels as an example. It was found that the heat conductivity and viscosity of feedstock, geometry and mold temperature were the most critical parameters for complete filling of micro features.

Small powder size is very useful in achieving detailed structures. STS 316 nanopowders with an average diameter of 100 nm and were utilized to produce feedstock. The mixing behavior of the feedstock indicated that the nanoparticle feedstock produced the highest mixing torque at various powder loading compared to the micropowder feedstock. The nanoparticles feedstocks showed that elastic properties are dominant in flow behavior and high viscosity. Conversely the micropowders feedstocks, viscous properties are dominant in flow behavior and less viscosity, nanopowders feedstock perform lower flow activation energy than feedstock with bigger particles.

The present investigation has been performed on full densification behavior and mechanical property of the powder injection molded Fe-8wt%Ni nanoalloy powder. The net shaping process of the nanopowder was conducted by powder injection molding (PIM) process. The key-process for fabricating fully densified net-shaped nanopowder by pressureless sintering is an optimal control of agglomerate size of nanopowder. Enhanced mechanical property of PIMed Fe-Ni nanopowder is explained by grain refinement and microstructural uniformity.