A variotherm mold for micro metal injection molding

In this paper, a variotherm mold was designed and fabricated for the production of 316L stainless steel microstructures by micro metal injection molding (MIM). The variotherm mold incorporated a rapid heating/cooling system, vacuum unit, hot sprue and cavity pressure transducer. The design of the variotherm mold and the process cycle of MIM using the variotherm mold were described. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the molded microstructures produced using variotherm mold and conventional mold. The experiments showed that microstructures of higher aspect ratio such as 60 m × height 191 m and 40 m × height 174 m microstructures could be injection molded with complete filling and demolded successfully using the variotherm mold. Molded microstructures with dimensions of 60 m × height 191 m were successfully debound and sintered without visual defects.