Feedstock investigation based on SAE 316L steel bimodal powders and PLA/PMMA for injection molding: An experimental study

This work studies the new polymer feedstock for the metal injection molding (MIM) process. The proposed feedstock is based on the bimodal powders of steel grade SAE 316L, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polylactide (PLA). The impact of PMMA content on the molding characteristics, thermal debinding and sintering of samples obtained by pressure casting is thoroughly investigated. It is found that the sintering density of the molded samples increases with the raise of PMMA content. It is shown that implementing the bimodal powder based composites in MIM applications results in samples with sinter density as high as 98%.This work studies the new polymer feedstock for the metal injection molding (MIM) process. The proposed feedstock is based on the bimodal powders of steel grade SAE 316L, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polylactide (PLA). The impact of PMMA content on the molding characteristics, thermal debinding and sintering of samples obtained by pressure casting is thoroughly investigated. It is found that the sintering density of the molded samples increases with the raise of PMMA content. It is shown that implementing the bimodal powder based composites in MIM applications results in samples with sinter density as high as 98%.