A laser-assisted high-speed metal sintering and forming technology has been developed to produce molds at lower cost and shorter lead-time and applied to the fabrication of injection molds. Mold fabrication, which substantially affects product development cost and lead-time, has been the subject of intense experimentation, centering around different approaches, such as rapid prototyping by solidifying liquid resin using laser light. However, none of these methods have been applicable to production processes due to insufficient accuracy and service life. The newly developed iron-based powder material and precision laser-beam forming method enable fabrication of an injection mold for production use that is capable of producing high-precision plastic parts for more than 10,000 shots.
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