MICRO POWDER INJECTION MOULDING OF 316L STAINLESS STEEL FEEDSTOCK AND NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE SINTERING STAGE

Manufacturing of 3D micro-components by powder injection molding process consists of four main stages: preparation of the feedstock of metal powders and binders, injection of powder/binder feedstock using micro-injection molding equipment, thermal or solvent debinding and sintering by solid state diffusion. For our research pruposes, the feedstocks have been realized with stainless steel 316L powders of 3.4 mu m (D(50)) and polymer binders. Finite element method has been used for the simulation in order to estimate shrinkage, relative density and evolution of the shapes of the micro-components, the parameters used in the sintering model have been identified in using Matlab( registered ) procedures before to be used in the simulation with Abaqus( registered ).