Inox Powder Injection Molding

Inox powder injection molding (PIM) is designed to have a cost-effective production series of durable, ceramic (CIM), or precision metal (MIM) parts.

At Inox, we place great value on flawless, reproducible injection molding production. We provide precisely adapted, complete solutions to the applications using automation solutions and integrated peripherals.

Inox Cast powder injection molding solution offers a great role in a wide range of applications such as electronics, irrigation, beverage & food, aerospace, data/telecommunication, commercial building products, and medical applications.

In the powder injection molding process, we realized advanced and high-tech production machines to make sure stable quality finished products. It can produce products that owned amazing advantages and several features.

Inox has a powder injection molding laboratory to test all the process steps under practical conditions from feedstock testing and development through to injection molding and preparation, debinding, and sintering of the molded parts.

Inox Powder Injection Molding Advantages:

• All metals can be processed (copper, titanium, aluminum, tungsten, alloy, steel, etc.)
• Ceramic materials can be processed (oxide ceramics: zirconium oxide or aluminum oxide and non-oxide ceramics: nitrides, carbides, or borides)
• High precision
• Repeatability
• High-quality surfaces

Inox powder injection molding is an ideal process to produce functional, complex parts with high material requirements and in large quantities.

If you’re looking for a reliable partner for powder injection molding, Inox is the best answer! We offer great and high-quality services to support your business.

Make Inox your trusted partner now! Don’t hesitate to reach out to our team!

Powder Injection Molding: The Ultimate Guide

In this guide, you will find all information you are looking for about powder injection molding.

Whether you want to learn about the process, feature or applications of powder injection molding; this guide will make you a powder injection molding expert.

Take a look:

1. What Is Powder Injection Molding?

Powder injection molding is a technique that is cost-effective and efficient when it comes to the production of complex large components of metals and ceramics.

This technique is suitable for the production of hard metals, metals, and ceramics with precision, strength, and accuracy.

With powder injection molding there is minimal need for secondary and assembly operations as allows you to produce components with high precision and high resilience.

Normally, powder injection molding uses sinterable powders to produce these complex components.

powder injection molding

 Powder injection molding allows you to produce a quiet range of ceramic, cermet, and net-shaped objects thus the need to maintain certain close dimensional tolerance.

2. What Are The Benefits of Powder Injection Molding?

Powder injection molding offers immense benefits in the production of different objects from small intricate objects to large objects.

This require close tolerance of these benefits include;

• Provides material flexibility: powder injection molding process provides flexibility when it comes to the material composition.

It’s so easy to produce intricate objects with reproducible densities and with a certain consistency.

You can also produce low-density objects through sinteration which can be used in solid oxide fuel, insulation, and metal matrix composites.

More so, you can combine two or more sinterable particulate systems allowing you to produce complex components such as aluminides.

• It’s much more economical: Materials and equipment sued during powder injection molding make the whole process much more economical.

With powder injection molding there is a considerable reduction in machine usage.

The powder injection molding process involves a series of four stages feedstock preparation, injection molding, debinding, and sintering.

This process results in more precise production of intricate to complex objects without the need for drilling, milling, grinding, or even polishing.

With powder injection molding materials such as chippings, feed systems or rejects can be collectively recycled.

This saves you cost considering some of these materials are expensive and scarce to acquire.

Some objects such as ceramics and cermet are so difficult to process hence you will find these materials as loose particles to ease production.

• Provides numerous geometric features: powder injection molding process allows mass production of net-shaped objects.

These objects are geometrically complexing nature.

This process provides a versatile range of the designs of some of the objects to be produced such as cermet, ceramic and composite components.

Powder injection molding has made it easy even for the production of designs that were initially considered as difficult.

For instance, it’s easy to produce, multi-shaped blind holes, screw threads, intricate cavities, undercuts, and also surface profiles among others.

Other benefits include;

• Powder injection molding allows the production of parts with excellent wear performance, good thermal behaviors, excellent hapic performance, and excellent frictional behavior.
• The powder injection molding process results in a high production process since it’s a combination of plastic injection molding and powder sintering techniques.
• Powder injection molding also helps achieve parts with excellent surface finish and good mechanical properties.
• Powder injection molding provides a wide range of products miniaturization (this involves the production of smaller optical, mechanical, or electrical devices).

3. How Does Powder Injection Molding Compare To Metal Injection Molding?

Both powder injection molding and metal injection molding have some common similarities as well as distinguishing features that make them different.

Powder injection molding is a process that results in the formation and production of parts from pressed metals in a die and then undergoing a sintering process.

powder injection molding

Metal injection molding on the other hand still uses metal particles that are finer to make a high-density object that has three-dimensional design flexibility.

Powder injection molding and metal injection molding use the same product materials that are base powders and custom alloys.

The difference comes when it comes to the texture of these materials.

For powder injection molding uses coarse powder which is relatively cheap to produce.

Metal injection molding on the other hand uses finer and small particles making it hard to produce this makes it more costly to produce this fine powder.

Powder injection molding materials have high porosity because of their coarse size, unlike metal injection molding which has low porosity because of fine particles.

With powder injection molding, all the density is achieved during the compacting stage while for metal injection molding density is achieved at the sintering stage.

Powder injection molding is suitable for small and simple shapes that are easily ejectable from the die cavity metal injection molding.

It’s easy to achieve three-dimensional design freedom since there are minimal geometric restrictions

Powder injection molding materials have a tolerance of 0.1-0.2% while metal injection molding materials have a tolerance of 0.3-0.5%

When it comes to the physical properties of powder injection molding and metal injection molding there is a great difference.

For the powder injection molding process, the friction that occurs between powder and tooling results in a non-uniform surface.

For metal injection molding, all the parts produced during this process are uniform.

The sintering process in metal injection molding requires a high-temperature range of 2350-2500F.

Powder injection molding requires a relatively low-temperature range of 1800F-2000F.

Low temperatures combined with large particles result in low physical properties in objects made using powder injection molding.

With metal injection molding, the high temperature and fine materials result in stronger parts that can resist any breakage.

Powder injection molding is suitable for the production of quite a range of parts that have different sizes and shapes.

These parts can be used in automotive, among other applications.

Metal injection molding is suitable for more complex parts where intricate designs are required.

4. Powder Injection Molding Process?

The powder injection process is a technology that allows the production of parts with intricate designs to more complex geometric designs.

Powder injection molding comprises;

Preparation Of Feedstock

This stage is also known as compounding. The whole injection process begins with the mixing of two main components that form the feedstock.

These components are powder and binders.

Essentially the binder out to be able to incorporate large volumes of ceramic powder or fine metals with a plastic binder to form a coherent mass.

This mass undergoes injection molding under a certain temperature which allows removal of the main binder in an easy process while still maintaining the strength of the mass.

The removal of the binder is done through the backbone binder.

Binder increases adherence of the powder particles during the injection molding process and also increases product resistance during the PIM process.

Ideally, a combination of two binders that is the main binder and secondary binder produces the best results during the PIM process.

With the removal of the main binder during debinding phase the remaining secondary binder.

It enhances the strength of the shaped object samples and is later removed at the sintering phase.

Examples of binders used in this stage include thermoplastic materials such as polyethylene, polystyrene, and polyacetals.

Powder particles should have a uniform size distribution and smooth surfaces to enhance the easy flow of feedstock.

To prevent distortion of the mass during debinding the powder particles should have high adhesion.

Some of the commonly used powders include titanium, nickel, high-speed steel, carbides,

And combat base alloys.

Injection Molding

The injection molding process allows the production of complex geometric parts using thermoplastic materials that contain ceramic powder and metals.

Injection molding applies the plastic processing techniques where the binder is melted in the plasticization unit before it injects into the mold.

When the materials on the mold cool off, the mold nozzle opens up and the part is extracted. This part is known as the green compact which comprises powder and the binder.

Debinding

The debinding process occurs subsequently after the injection molding process.

The Debinding technique in powder injection molding allows the removal of the binder “the green” part.

After the removal of the binder, a white or brown component will be produced.

Debinding can be either through dissolving the binder, or the use of catalytic or thermal debinding.

Debinding using dissolving requires you to use the correct chemical agents that will dissolve the binder.

Thermal debinding involves removing the binder from the green part using thermal energy most commonly it’s the heat.

Catalytic debinding requires the use of a suitable catalyst to debind the component.

Catalytic debinding depends largely on the chemical structure of the formed component and the characterization of the carbon-oxygen bond.

After the binder is removed from the component a brown compact is formed which contains traces of the binder.

This brown compact is not only very sensitive to external mechanical forces but also has high porous.

This stage ends with the combustion of the already available gaseous components.

Sintering

Sintering of the brown compact occurs in two phases.

The first stage involves removing the residual binder components through thermal decomposition.

The second stage occurs in the porous part which only contains the metal powder.

The sole reason for the sintering process is to reduce the size of the powder particle resulting in a smaller surface area.

This property modifies the physical properties of the particles from being highly porous to pore-free materials.

The density achieved on the particle powder determines the sintering quality process.

The high density of the pore-free materials the higher the density hence increased technological properties.

5. Applications Of Powder Injection Molding

Powder injection molding is a manufacturing technology that is growing so fast allowing manufacturers to produce both simple and complex designs.

These have enabled manufacturers to diversify which components to produce. Some of the most common applications where powder injection molding is used include;

• Production of optical tool machine parts
• Optical communication parts
• Trimming and control keys
• Alumina thread guides
• Stainless steel gear wheels for an electric toothbrush
• Floppy disks drive head parts
• Automobile airbags
• Injection nozzles
• Dental tools
• Gear or worm wheels
• Designs covers and castings
• Rare earth magnet pole pieces for hard disks drives
• Printer parts

6. What Is Powder Co-Injection Molding?

Powder co-injection molding is a ceramic or metal injection molding that uses two materials concurrently.

The use of two materials not only reduces cost but also the surface engineered components development.

Ideally, instead of using a single barrel to heat the materials, two Barrells are used which are connected to a single nozzle through the pneumatic valve.

Injection of powder and binder occurs sequentially in the mold so that when these two materials mix, they form the skin on the first barrel.

In the second barrel, the core is formed from the mixture of powder and the binder.

The ratio of the binder to that of powder is not equivalent in each of these barrels.

This variation in ratio allows the production of thin or thick surface engineered coatings.

7. Common Defects In Powder Injection Molding Process

Powder injection molding consists of a series of processes, and a lot can happen in between these processes.

If you are not cautious you may experience different defects during the powder injection molding process.

The defects occur as a result of;

• Mechanical factors vary from mold manufacturing and poor mold designs.
• Processing-related factors result from incomplete kneading of raw materials, injection speed, and inadequate molding pressure.

This defect is also a result of non-optimized debinding and sintering parameters and holding pressure.

In most cases, it’s hard to pinpoint these defects because some occur during the early stages of processing and are only known during sintering or debinding.

8. Achievable Tolerances Using Powder Injection Molding

There might be slight alterations in variations when producing parts using the powder injection molding process.

It’s therefore important to indicate/declare the average tolerance of the parts to allow the parts you produce to be able to achieve the intended functions.

Powder injection molding has very minimal part tolerance since the size of powder particles is very fine.

This makes the final part produced more porous even though the surface finish is of high quality.

With powder injection molding you can achieve as low as 0.05mm tolerance during the production of parts, especially after the sintering process.

Some of the factors that affect tolerance in powder injection molding include;

Material Selection

There is quite a wide range of thermoplastics and powders that you can use during the production of parts using powder injection molding.

The choice of these materials entirely depends on the function of the parts you are producing.

Ideally, each of these thermoplastics has different shrinking rates which entitle affects the tolerance rate of the formed parts.

It’s therefore important to put into consideration the shrinking rate of these materials and how they impact the tolerance of the parts you produce.

Design Of The Part

Wall thickness and angles among other features are some of the things you should consider while designing parts.

This helps prevent excess shrinking, warping, and part misalignment.

It’s therefore important to note these features and set tolerance ranges to maintain and have the original functions in place.

Process Control

It’s important to be able to control the temperatures, pressure, and holding time to measure the tolerance of the parts.

Constantly maintaining the temperatures and pressure will help you in ensuring consistency tolerance on the parts produced.

Tool Design

There is a variance when it comes to material shrinkage during powder injection molding.

In most cases, you will find compels parts with thicker walls will shrink more than parts with thinner walls.

This will have an impact on the tolerance of these parts.

It’s therefore important to consider tool tolerance and tool cooling.

9. How Does Powder Injection Molding Compare To Ceramic injection Molding?

Ceramic injection molding is a process in which the fabrication of ceramic parts is done using an injection molding process that is similar to plastic injection molding.

Ceramic injection molding involves a combination of Alumina powder and certain binders which will be pre-heated to form parts.

Once you remove this part from the mold, the sintering process will follow where you subject the part to high temperatures.

Ceramic injection molding produces parts that are net-shaped in dimension, unlike PIM which produces three-dimensional parts.

Powder injection molding uses thermoplastic materials and powders to form the feedstock which produces intricate and complex designs of components.

ceramic injection molding

I know you may also be interested in Powder Metallurgy.

For all your powder injection moulding needs, contact us now.