POWDER INJECTION MOLDING OF INVAR 36 ALLOY

摘要

Several binary alloys of nickel and iron exhibit low coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE). As a result of their low CTE, these alloys have been used for a variety of different and interesting applications such as absolute standards of length, compensating pendulums and balance wheels in clocks and watches, bimetal strips, radar resonant cavities, several optical devices, etc. New applications of these alloys continue to be developed. Among the binary nickel-iron alloys, Invar 36 Alloy, has one of the lowest thermal expansion coefficient of any metals or alloys in the temperature range from ambient to around 200oC. This alloy has several interesting applications, some of which have extremely complicated shapes. Powder injection molding (PIM) is a material shaping process that is extremely suitable for producing medium to high volumes of complex shaped parts. The process has found numerous applications in a large number of different industries. The PIM process is also expected to be suitable for producing complex shapes from Invar 36 - type low CTE Fe-Ni-based alloys. This paper reports on the preliminary investigations on the PIM processing of Invar 36 Alloy, a Fe-36Ni alloy.