Manufacturing technology of micro parts by powder injection molding

PIM기술을 이용한 마이크로 부품 성형기술

Manufacturing technologies of micro spur gear and micro mold by micro PIM were studied with stainless steel feedstock. For molding of gears, micro mold with gear cavity of 1.2 mm in diameter was produced by wire EDM. The proper injection pressure was selected to 70bar by observation and measuring of shapes and shrinkage of gears before/after sintering. For fabrication of micro mold, a tiny polymer gear was produced by injection into the mold. Then, 316L feedstock was again injected/compressed on the polymer gear and debinded together with polymer gear followed by sintering. As a result, another metal mold with gear cavity reduced to about 20% was fabricated and through repetition of this process chain, micro gear mold with cavity about below 800 um was finally obtained. In reduction of size by injection/compression molding, height of gear tooth was shrunk more and the effort for decrease of roughness of micro cavity were carried out ultrasonic polishing and as a result, the roughness in cavity decreased from 3-4 um to about 200 nm.