Powder injection moulding of multi-material devices

An important goal in research and development (R+D) is to enhance powder injection moulding (PIM) to combine two or more materials with different properties in a single piece manufactured in one process cycle. A further advantage is the considerable reduction of mounting costs. In principle, a certain range of options should be suitable for creating multi-component products. An important option is two-component PIM which is mainly characterized by a sophisticated sintering procedure taking into account the kinetics of all powder types involved. Investigations into how to fabricate immobile or mobile ceramic shaft-wheel components have been carried out successfully and even metal and ceramic materials can be connected for fixed joints. A further opportunity is opened up by In-mould Labelling PIM which uses powder filled tapes as the first component. Here again particular attention has to be paid to the sintering procedure, but if this is done, samples containing nano-sized powders in the surface area of the whole body can be obtained.