Injection molding, debinding and sintering of 316L stainless steel microstructures

The micro powder injection molding (mu PIM) process was used to fabricate metallic microstructures in this paper. The production of 316L stainless steel microstructures arrays with the dimensions of phi 100 mu m x height 200 mu m and phi 60 mu m x height 191 mu m is presented. Injection molding was conducted on a conventional injection molding machine and silicon mold inserts with vertical sidewall made by deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) were used. Molded parts with microstructures were well obtained after selecting suitable processing parameters based on the feedstock characteristics. Then the molded parts were debound catalytically and sintered. Sintering at different temperature was conducted under vacuum. The effects of sintering temperatures were evaluated based on the polished and etched micrographs of the sintered microstructures. Finally Young's Modulus of sintered microstructure was evaluated using nano-indenter.