In situ Studies and Simulations of Mould Filling with a Model System for PIM

The processing conditions and the mould design are important parts of the powder injection moulding (PIM) process. In the present work, the mould filling phase of the process has been studied in situ with a special mould equipped with a sight glass using a high speed camera. affects of features such as the mould temperature, the melt temperature, the surface roughness of the mould cavity, the gate dimensions, the mould design and the flow rate on the filling behaviour were demonstrated. In particular it was noted that a rougher mould surface to some extent facilitated the filling of the mould. The mould temperature, the nominal melt temperature and the flow rate affected the position of weld lines via the cooling of the feedstock and the corresponding change of the melt viscosity. The experimentally determined weld-line positions were compared with predictions from numerical simulations performed with the commercial software Moldex3D The agreement between the experiment and the prediction was in most cases quite fair or good. The in situ observation of the mould filling also provided the possibility to study how the gate dimensions and the flow rate influenced the jetting behaviour.