Kneading and molding of ceramic microparts by precision powder injection molding (PIM)

This paper investigates the kneading and formability of microparts made using alumina in micropowder injection molding. In this study, quality feedstock with uniform powder dispersion was achieved when optimum kneading process was performed. In addition, the thin microplates were successfully manufactured using a custom-made injection machine. Shrinkage was significantly reduced in microspecimens when the mold temperature was increased to 70 degrees C. The results of flow visualization were conformed to that of experiments in this study. A very important result for flow visualization and experiment was molten polymer filled the cavity by shortest period producing a least shrinkage in microparts. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.