Abstract
A production method for porous metal components has been developed by applying powder space holder (PSH) method to metal powder injection molding (MIM) process. The PSH-MIM method has an industrial advantage which is capable of net-shape manufacturing the micro-size porous metal products with complicated shapes and controlled porosity and pore size. In this study, a small impeller made of stainless steel 316L was manufactured by injection molding, and a plate specimen was produced by extrusion molding to evaluate the dimensional accuracy of the porous sintered parts produced by the PSH-MIM method. The effects of combinations of size and fraction of space holder particle on the dimensional deviation and its coefficient of variance were investigated. It was concluded that the PSH-MIM method could manufacture commercially micro-porous metal components with high dimensional accuracy.
