Powder Metallurgy

ISSN: 0032-5899 (Print) 1743-2901 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ypom20

Powder injection moulding of multi-material

devices
V. Piotter, E. Honza, A. Klein, T. Mueller & K. Plewa
To cite this article: V. Piotter, E. Honza, A. Klein, T. Mueller & K. Plewa (2015) Powder injection
moulding of multi-material devices, Powder Metallurgy, 58:5, 344-348
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/0032589915Z.000000000256

Published online: 19 Feb 2016.

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Powder injection moulding of multi-material

devices
V. Piotter*, E. Honza, A. Klein, T. Mueller and K. Plewa

Downloaded by [Bibliothque TS] at 12:29 15 March 2016

An important goal in research and

development (R D) is to enhance
powder injection moulding (PIM) to
combine two or more materials with
different properties in a single piece
manufactured in one process cycle.
A further advantage is the considerable
reduction of mounting costs.
In principle, a certain range of options
should be suitable for creating multicomponent products. An important
option is two-component PIM which is
mainly characterized by a sophisticated
sintering procedure taking into account
the kinetics of all powder types
involved. Investigations into how to
fabricate immobile or mobile ceramic
shaft-wheel components have been
carried out successfully and even metal
and ceramic materials can be connected
for fixed joints.
A further opportunity is opened up by
In-mould Labelling PIM which uses
powder filled tapes as the first
component. Here again particular
attention has to be paid to the sintering
procedure, but if this is done, samples
containing nano-sized powders in the
surface area of the whole body can be
obtained.
Keywords: powder injection moulding, multicomponent injection moulding, MIM, CIM,
MicroPIM, in-mould-labelling

Introduction
Like the manufacturing of plastic
devices, injection moulding of more
than one material per cycle has major
advantages for powder metallurgical
production. The most important is the
saving of mounting steps, i.e. the significant reduction of assembly costs.
The second advantage lies in the wide
range of product applications which are
opened by the ability to combine
different functionalities. The parts

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Applied Materials (IAM-WK), Hermannvon-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 EggensteinLeopoldshafen, Germany
*Corresponding author, email volker.piotter@
kit.edu

344

2015 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining

Published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Institute
DOI 10.1179/0032589915Z.000000000256

obtained mostly consist of a combination of materials with different

properties that may well be opposed to
one another e.g., electrically
conducting/insulating or magnetic/nonmagnetic.
The attractiveness can be increased
further if the multi-component
techniques are combined with the wellknown powder injection moulding
process so that even metal and
ceramic materials become
applicable.1,2 Of course, such a combination reveals quite exciting challenges
especially with respect to the
subsequent sintering
procedures.3,4,5,6,7
At this point it has to be mentioned
that manufacturing multi-material parts
is not limited to one technique. In
principle plenty of options exist. Figure 1
provides a schematic overview on the
different versions, depending on what
kind of pre-bodies (or resins) are used
and in which sequence they are applied.
One variant, sinter joining, combines
two or more previously moulded green
bodies to form a complex device
geometry and connect these singular
bodies tightly during the subsequent
sintering procedure. The technique can
be applied for joining of a wide range of
material couples.8,9 Other R D
approaches are targeted on applications in Micro Systems
Technology.10,11
Further options are available. For
example, combination of Additive
Manufacturing techniques with PIM
would allow for customization while
maintaining the cost benefits of replicative mass production.12
The following, however, will focus on
two variants performing the shaping
and connecting procedures in the
moulding tool itself, namely twocomponent powder injection moulding
followed by In-mould Labelling using
PIM feedstocks.

Multi component powder

injection moulding
Creating fixed and flexible joints
When talking about manufacturing
multi-material powder metallurgical

parts one usually thinks of multi- or

two-component PIM (2C-PIM) at first.
By this method, at least two different
feedstocks are injected simultaneously
or at different times in a tempered tool
to form a composite device during
molding. To ensure manufacture of a
dimensionally accurate and stable
sintered part, some further obstacles,
however, have to be overcome, i.e.
complete mold filling for the partial
cavity volumes, deformation-free
debindering, and distortion-free
sintering through homogeneous
shrinkage, among others, must be
achieved. Studies are already available
on two-component PIM in macro and
micro dimensions.3,5,13,14,15
The particular attractiveness, but also
challenge, of 2C-PIM consists in
obtaining either flexible or permanent
joints. For sufficient bond strengths,
permanent joints must have defined
bonding surfaces between gear wheels
and shafts. To ensure that stresses and
strain in the two components are
avoided or reduced to a minimum at
the same time, the material selection
and process procedures must be
adapted in such a way that the gear
wheel and shaft are sintered almost
simultaneously i.e., that both
components are largely identical as
regards the degree of shrinkage and
the sintering kinetics. If these rules are
kept, entirely different classes of
materials, e.g. steels and ceramics, can
be combined. Interesting examples
have been produced by Fraunhofer
Institute IKTS (Fig. 2a and b).
For flexible joints, conditions are
almost reverse i.e., the process
parameters and material combinations
must be selected in such a way that
sintering of the inner partial sections
starts earlier than sintering of the surrounding outer sections and that, in
addition, the degree of shrinkage of the
inner section is higher.
Thorough studies on two-component
shaft-bearing connections carried out at
KIT have shown that permanent joints
can be manufactured reproducibly.
Realization of flexible joints was found
to be much more difficult and required,
among other things, comprehensive

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POWDER INJECTION MOULDING OF MULTI-MATERIAL DEVICES

1 Schematic compilation of combination options to produce multi-material parts. For the methods written in italics no exhibits
or publications are available yet

modifications of the composition of the

two powder fractions.6,16 Only under
such conditions and with an appropriate
tool design could a gap been formed
enabling rotary motion between the
inner (shaft) and outer (bearing) partial
section.

Powder injection moulding of

tungsten and tungsten alloys
Processing of tungsten and tungsten
alloys by PIM is currently performed in
various modes and material
classes.17,18,19 The most important
ones from the quantitative point of
view are hard metal alloys, i.e.
cemented carbides like tungsten
carbide. Further applications targeting
an increasing market are tungsten
copper alloys20,21,22 to be used for
e.g. heat sinks in microelectronic
products.
Besides these industrially viable
fields of utilization the processing of
pure tungsten and doped-tungsten
materials by PIM has gained increasing
attention over the last years. Possible
applications are for energy generation,
i.e. fabrication of plasma-facing
components for future Fusion
reactors.23 Further applications would
be as electrodes for different kinds of
high-power lamps.

A particular challenge for processing

tungsten by PIM results from the high
temperatures required for sufficient
densification. However, there are
alternative possibilities, e.g. a special
process conduct based on a successive
compaction by pre-sintering and hot
isostatic pressing (HIP) was developed
at KIT.24
Following this route led to twocomponent WPIM which offers the
possibility of manufacturing multifunctional parts with reduced assembly
efforts and without additional brazing
steps. Combinations of pure tungsten
plus alloyed tungsten or different
tungsten alloys have been realized
showing nearly defect-free boundaries.
Examples for Fusion Reactor
components consisting of pure
tungsten and tungsten alloys (WLa2O3, W-Y2O3) including examination
of the interfaces are described in Ref.
[25].

In-mould labelling using PIM

feedstocks
This variant uses pre-fabricated inserts
in the form of foils or tapes which are
mounted in a tool and subsequently
covered by an injection-moulded
feedstock layer on the back.26,27 The
method is similar to the In-mould

Labelling (IML) process well-known

from plastics manufacturing. By using
powder-filled tapes and PIM
feedstocks, however, it enables the
fabrication of two- or multilayered
metal or ceramic parts (Fig. 3).
The foils or tapes might be manufactured by slip casting, foil casting, or
rolling processes. Before inserting
them into the injection moulding tool,
the foils can be printed, punched,
embossed or subjected to another
preliminary treatment. In this way, it is
possible to generate color patterns or
lateral structures on the surface of the
PIM body. Another advantage not to be
underestimated results from the fact
that submicron or even nanopowders
can be introduced into the foils avoiding
the usual drawback, i.e. a massive
increase in viscosity, occurring
under such constellation. The great
advantage is that finer powders enable
sharper reliefs and better surface
qualities.28,29
Tools for In-mould Labelling require
auxiliary features for inserting and
fixation of the foils. However, as the
technique is derived from plastics
processing, appropriate tooling know
how is available. Therefore, the major
challenge associated with In-mould
Labelling using powder feedstocks

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2 a Fixed connection of metal (steel 430L) and ceramic (ZrO2) materials created by 2C-PIM incorporating a sophisticated
sintering procedure (above). b BSEM images of the interface area of connected ceramic (ZrO2) and metal (steel 17-4PH)
samples. The left figure shows a microscopic interlocking structure supported by a partial material bond. Additionally,
a certain intermediate phase can be detected on the right image (dark grey stripes indicated by white arrows). Courtesy of
Fraunhofer Institute IKTS, Dresden, Germany

3 Schematic illustration of the In-mould Labelling process using feedstocks filled with different kinds of powders (IML-PIM)

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4 View of the cross section of a green body produced by IML-MicroPIM

5 Cross sections of sintered IML-MicroPIM samples. Mean particle size of the foil zirconia powder 70 nm (left), and 40 nm
(right)

consists in the development of an

adequate sinter process. From this
point of view it equals 2C powder
injection moulding of fixed joints. The
sintering procedure has to allow for
dense compacts of both partial
volumes as well as for a solid
composite.30
The process has already been investigated for macroscopic applications26
using mono-layered tapes as well as
staples of foils. The latter provides the
additional advantage of creating a
gradient in the filler content thus a
continuous transition from one section
to the other.31
Trials for adaptation of IML-PIM to
micro systems technology are currently
running. An example based on zirconia
filled tapes and feedstocks is described
by Figs 4 and 5. For these trials green

tapes of a thickness of approximately

300 mm have been processed. As fillers
two different kinds of powders have
been used: a nano-sized zirconia with a
d50 of 70 nm (powder loading 53Vol%)
and an even finer nano-sized zirconia
powder with a d50 of 40 nm (powder
loading 50Vol%).
The PIM feedstock contained a
powder loading of 50Vol%. Here,
common Tosoh 3YSE zirconia was
chosen as filler and the binder
consisted of paraffin wax (46-56%),
polyethylen (40-50%), stearic acid
and special additives to obtain
appropriate coupling of powder
and binder.
As shown by Fig. 4 the green body
revealed a clear boundary line between
tape and feedstock. Investigation of the
sintered samples, however, led to

different results: while the sample

with 70 nm zirconia powder showed no
distinct boundary line but fully dense
sections, the former tape area of the
sample with the finer zirconia powder
was obviously not sufficiently
compacted (Fig. 5). This outcome
again demonstrated the importance of
specific sintering procedures adapted
particularly to both powder types.

Summary and outlook

As demonstrated above the different
variants of multi-component shaping
methods, mostly based on powder
injection moulding, enable different
materials to be combined in one
compound part. It must be outlined that
it is not only important to save
assembly steps and thus be more

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efficient, but that emphasis should be

placed on obtaining multi-functional
components whose manufacture using
other methods would be quite difficult
and cumbersome.
In case of multi-component injection
moulding (2C-PIM), various research
approaches are currently running
worldwide, for example, resulting in
certain metals and ceramics
becoming connected in one compound
part. The process allows for fixed as
well as movable joints. The latter, of
course, requires profound and partspecific adaption of the feedstock
recipes and the thermal process
conduct.
In-mould Labelling using PIMfeedstocks (IML-PIM) represents a
further method to produce multimaterial, thus multi-functional devices.
Similar to the realization of fixed connections by 2C-PIM it requires a sophisticated tuning between feedstock
composition and the shaping and
sintering parameters. Once this
challenge is overcome, an option of
high economic efficiency to fabricate
products characterized by enhanced
and/or functionalized surfaces will be
achievable.

Acknowledgements
This work was partly carried out with
the support of the Karlsruhe Nano
Micro Facility (KNMF, www.knmf.kit.edu), the Helmholtz Research Infrastructure at Karlsruhe Institute of
Technology (KIT, www.kit.edu).
Further thanks go to the European
Commission (Multilayer NMP2-LA2008-214122) and the German Research
Society (DFG) for financial funding and to
all helpful colleagues at KIT as well as to
the external cooperating partners.

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