Metal Injection Molding Technology for High Performance Titanium Alloys

Metal Injection Molding Technology for High Performance Titanium Alloys

Metal powder injection molding technology is developed on the basis of powder metallurgy technology, combined with plastic injection technology, achieving nearly 100% utilization of raw materials, and is a near net molding technology. The general operating process is to first mix the prepared powder and binder into granules to make granular feed, then shape the feed on an injection molding machine to form a specific shape of the product body, and then degrease and sinter to obtain the product with the required performance. The advantages of titanium alloy metal powder injection molding are:

Metal powder injection molding

1. Can achieve mass production of small three-dimensional complex shaped parts;

2. Uniform composition, fine structure, and excellent mechanical properties;

3. Easy to add alloy elements to prepare the required materials;

4. Easy to control the microstructure of materials.

In the injection molding process of powder titanium alloy, the design of the binder is a core link. It is responsible for successfully completing the injection of titanium alloy powder in a fluid state throughout the entire injection molding process, and plays an important role in maintaining the shape of the billet until the pre sintering stage. However, the added adhesive also becomes one of the most likely sources of pollutants during the entire injection molding process. In addition, a higher binder content will reduce the filling amount of the powder, which not only causes the shape of the body to collapse after degreasing, resulting in defects such as deformation and cracking, but also increases the sintering shrinkage rate, seriously reducing dimensional accuracy. Product; Although the content of the binder can ensure a high powder filling amount, it is difficult to prepare a feed with good fluidity, and the injection cannot be completed smoothly. Ensuring the balance between the binder content and the powder filling amount greatly increases the difficulty of proxy research in the bonding process. It can be seen that although the binder cannot determine the final composition of the sintered product, its selection and use will directly affect the subsequent degreasing and sintering processes, thereby affecting product quality. Therefore, in the research work of metal powder injection molding titanium alloy technology, the focus is on the bonding technology, which also captures the key issue.