PIM International, Vol. 16 No. 3 September 2022

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The 124-page September 2022 issue of Powder Injection Moulding International (Vol. 16 No. 3) features over 50 pages of industry news, plus the following articles and technical reviews:

Calling all product designers: Discover what Metal Injection Moulding could do for you through these award-winning parts

Metal Injection Moulding is one of the most capable manufacturing processes for small precision components, yet it is also one of the least known. MIM parts are everywhere, from smartphones to watches, cars to aircraft – but these examples are rarely noticed by those outside of the industry.

Here, we present the fourteen award-winning MIM parts from the Metal Powder Industries Federation’s 2022 Powder Metallurgy Design Excellence Awards. These examples offer an insight into the technology, as well as the opportunity for product designers and engineers to consider how they might use MIM in their own projects.

Binder Jetting of a dual-phase steel: Process insight and optimisation using the Master Sintering Curve

Binder Jetting (BJT) is never far from the headlines in the worlds of Powder Metallurgy and Additive Manufacturing, but, whilst there has been a lot of emphasis on Binder Jetting’s build process, the crucial sintering stage has received less attention. Can we really go along with the assumption that it’s ‘just like sintering for Metal Injection Moulding’?

Here, Markus Schneider and colleagues from GKN Sinter Metals Engineering GmbH, GKN Additive and Hoeganaes Corporation bring together their deep expertise in sintering to reveal just how differently metal BJT parts perform, and what implications there are for part design and future process optimisation.

The rise of filament-based metal AM: New materials and machines present opportunities for MIM producers

BASF’s Catamold® feedstock for Metal Injection Moulding triggered the massive expansion of the global MIM industry in the 1990s. With the same technology now adapted for filament-based metal Additive Manufacturing, and a new generation of Material Extrusion machines tailored to support what is widely known as metal Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), can the same success be repeated? Andrea Gasperini, Ultimaker BV, Tobias Rödlmeier, BASF Forward AM, and Steve Cox, Amfori Consulting, consider the opportunities.

Sinter-based Additive Manufacturing at the 20^th Plansee Seminar on Refractory Metals and Hard Materials

The hardmetals industry is well used to making high-performance components from metallic powders. Today it is an industry with global sales in excess of $15 billion and applications that range from cutting tool inserts to components for oil & gas, construction and beyond. The processing of hardmetals, otherwise known as cemented carbides, by Additive Manufacturing has inevitably become an area of intense activity, building, in part, on expertise from the industry’s use of MIM to deliver greater design complexity.

Bernard North reports on innovations in the sinter-based AM of hardmetals presented at this year’s Plansee Seminar.

Ceramitec 2022: Opportunities abound for producers of technical ceramics by CIM and AM

After a four-year interruption due to COVID-19, Ceramitec, the leading trade fair for the ceramics industry, reopened its doors at Messe München, Germany, from June 21–24, 2022. Whilst noticeably smaller than in previous years, and with significant gaps in the floor plan from the industrial ceramics sector, the event appears to have been positive for the technical ceramics community.

Dr Georg Schlieper visited the exhibition for PIM International and reports on activities of interest to users of Ceramic Injection Moulding and ceramic Additive Manufacturing technologies.

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