Prediction of Powder Injection Molding Process Parameters Using Artificial Neural Networks

The parameters of Powder Injection Molding (PIM) process were modeled by artificial neural networks (ANNs). The feed-forward multilayer perceptron was utilized and trained by back-propagation algorithm. Particle size, particle morphology, debinding time, and sintering temperature were taken into account and regarded as inputs of the ANN model. The outputs included relative density, wax loss, shrinkage, and hardness. The results obtained using the ANN model were in good agreement with the experimental data. In fact, they displayed an average R-value of 0.95 versus the experimental values. The optimum architecture of ANN was 7-4-1, in which the network was trained with Levenberg-Marquardt training algorithm. Thus, the ANN model can be used to evaluate, calculate, and forecast PIM process parameters.