Powder Metallurgy

Volume 53 (2010), 4 issues per year 

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Powder Metallurgy is an international journal publishing peer reviewed original research on the science and practice of powder metallurgy and particulate technology; and news of technological and commercial developments in the industry and PM community. Coverage is broad, encompassing hard materials, ceramics, composites, and novel materials in addition to metallic particulate materials, and ranging from the production, handling and characterization of powders, through compaction and sintering and other consolidation routes, to the properties, secondary processing, and applications of PM components.

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Powder Metallurgy best paper prize
The Particulate Engineering Committee (PEC) of the IOM3 has made its second biennial award to recognise excellence in papers submitted to Powder Metallurgy. Following an assessment of papers published in the journal in 2007 and 2008, the PEC made the award to the paper ‘Optimisation of process conditions in powder injection moulding (PIM) of microsystem components using a robust design method. Part I: primary design parameters’, by R. Urval, S. Lee, S. V. Atre, S.-J. Park and R. M. German, published in the June 2008 issue (51, (2), 133–142).
The paper investigates the design issues related to PIM for the fabrication of thin walled, high aspect ratio geometries using the PIMSolver computer aided design package. Such geometries are commonly used in microtechnology based electrochemical, mechanical and biological systems. These are multiscalefluidic devices (i.e. devices with dimensions in at least two different length scale regimes) employing heat and mass transfer through embedded micro- and nanoscale features. The effect of reducing part thickness on the process parameters, including melt temperature, mould temperature, fill time and switchover position, during the mould filling stage of the injection moulding cycle was explored for a stainless steel feedstock.
A steep increase in process variability was observed as the plate thickness decreased for all four process parameters. Process control thus becomes crucial for successful moulding of thin walled high aspect ratio components. As the thickness reduces, the surface area to volume ratio of the cavity increases, which leads to fast solidification. To ensure complete cavity filling, high injection and mould temperatures are therefore required. Mould temperature control was found to contribute 50% to the total variability. Future work will extend the investigation to other metallic and ceramic materials and validate the CAD predictions.
The PEC welcomes nominations of excellent papers for future awards, which should be sent to the Secretary, Dr Isaac Chang, email i.t.chang@bham.ac.uk.