REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

www.mod.gov.rs

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Material Resources Sector

Defensive Technologies Department

Military Technical Institute

www.vti.mod.gov.rs

INJECTION MOULDING: ESSENTIAL step OF pOWDER INJECTION MOULDING (PIM) technology

JOVAN RADULOVIĆ

MilitaryTechnical Institute, Belgrade, vti@vti.vs.rs

Abstract: The basic phases of highly productive and widely used plastics technology i.e. injection moulding technology are presented. This technology is of essential importance in production of complex shape high volume completely metal parts by powder injection moulding technology, shortly PIM technology. Four phases of PIM technology are described (compaunding ei. prepearing of feedstock, injection moulding of binder/powder material, debinding of binder component and sintering) based on the material consisting of thermoplastic binder and metal powder. A feedstock polyacetal binder/low alloy steel powder was chosen and by injection moulding technology is obtained injection molded product so called „green part“. By this way, a „green part“ (precisely, test specimen according to standard ASTM E8/E8M-11) is produced, for the first time in Serbia. A feedstock characteristics (density, semi-quantitative analysis and visual appearance) and „green part“properties (mass, density, semi-quantitative analysis and visual appearance) were tested. It was concluded that satisfactory results were obtained.

Keywords: Injection moulding, thermoplastics with metal powder, “green part“, characteristics, powder injection moulding technology.