Limitation of Metal Injection Molding

The basic MIM process steps of metal injection molding are: first select the metal powder and binder in accordance with the MIM requirements, then mix the powder and binder into a uniform feed at a certain temperature using a suitable method. Injection molding, and the obtained shaped billet is subjected to degreasing treatment and sintered to be finalized.

It’s an advanced metal parts manufacturing technology, have several advantages compared traditional methods, these MIM advantages include:

1. High utilization rate of raw materials. Material properties equivalent to wrought alloys;
2. Manufacture small size metal parts (0.02-200g) with complicated geometric shapes directly like producing plastic parts;
3. MIM parts have superior mechanical properties to castings and other PM parts, reflecting fine particle size and high sintered density;
4. Surface roughness up to Ra1.2;
5. Steady quality, high efficiency and economic manufacture of high volume complex parts;
6. No pollution, clean production process.



But Metal Injection Molding also have limitation like other technologies. Here are some disadvantages, or limits of MIM.
1. The material cost of the metal injection molding is high-Compared to powder metallurgy, MIM has higher requirements of raw materials, that makes the cost of MIM is higher.
2. The parts manufactured using this process are typically small-Due to the space of MIM furnace, the most suitable size for MIM is 10-15mm(considered the cost of powder).
3. Quantity of production, as the cost of mould is not cheap, MIM is more suitable for massive production.



With those advantages and disadvantages of Metal Injection Molding, we could know that MIM is a complement technology for traditional methods, and the 3D printing is rising, we would never know what future is. But we always choose the best solution for your metal parts manufacturing.