New Material and Processing Issues for High Quality Parts by Micro-MIM

The development of Micro MIM as a new manufacturing process for metallic micro parts made of advanced functional materials has been the subject of considerable research over the last years. This paper addresses important quality aspects on processing of new materials by Micro-MIM. Three examples of new functional materials that can be processed are reviewed in this paper. The first example is two-component-Micro-MIM to obtain multi-functional devices. A micro positioning encoder consisting of a magnetic / non-magnetic material combination is presented. The second issue is series production of the replicate of the smallest human bone in the ear (stapes) from Titanium as an example of medical application. Quality assurance and reproducibility in terms of injection moulding parameters are addressed. In the third part, first results on the processing of the shape memory alloy NiTi by Micro-MIM are presented. Potential applications include biocompatible devices and transportation, for example automotive and aerospace. Processing routes and initial microstructures obtained are discussed.