Title: Modelling the powder–binder separation in injection stage of PIM

Authors: Sudip K. Samanta, Himadri Chattopadhyay, Mahadev Malhar Godkhindi

Addresses: Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute, Durgapur 713209, India. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, India. ' Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India

Abstract: In this paper, a non-isothermal multiphase flow numerical model has been developed based on Eulerian approach to simulate the powder-binder separation phenomenon in the injection stage of Powder Injection Moulding (PIM) and the simulated results are validated with experiments. The model takes into account of the non Newtonian viscosity of the powder and binder phases. Simulation as well as experiments have been carried out for a standard tensile test specimen with gating and ejection systems. A temperature correction method has been introduced during solidification taking into account of the latent heat release of binder. It can be seen from the simulated results that injection temperature has larger effect on phase segregation than injection speed due to larger effect of temperature on viscosity.

Keywords: PIM; powder injection moulding; feedstock; powder-binder separation; simulation; multiphase flow; modelling; viscosity; tensile testing; gating; ejection; temperature correction; solidification; latent heat release; binder; injection temperature; injection speed.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2011.042181

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2011 Vol.11 No.5, pp.292 - 304

Published online: 31 Aug 2011 *

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