Nowadays, the use of replicative processes has become strategic and crucial to produce dimensional precision and micro-detailed metallic parts/devices, associated with low cost production. Powder injection molding (PIM) is a well-established process, but metal powder hot embossing is now an emerging challenging process that brings some advantages associated with the reduction of production costs when compared to PIM. The metal powder embossing technology requires four distinct steps: preparation of the selected feedstock material (powder and binder); hot embossing; debinding and sintering. This work addresses the effect of continuous pressure during hot embossing step for the replication of microdetails in 316L stainless steel parts. To characterize the parts several tests were performed: microstructural characterization, SEM/EDS analysis, microhardness tests, porosity quantification and 3D measurements. For the configuration tested, the most promising results were achieved with processing at 180°C, for 30 minutes at a pressure of 14 MPa.
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