Precipitation-hardening stainless steel. Offers a good balance between corrosion resistance and strength. Magnetic. Hardenable to various strength levels and hardness by varying the aging heat treat temperature. Typically provides better corrosion resistance than the 400 series stainless steels, and better strength than the 300 series stainless steels. Often used for aircraft, dental, marine, medical, surgical, and applications where high levels of strength and hardness, and good corrosion resistance is required Property values reported are typical for Kinetics' MIM products. Metal Injection Molding General Notes: Fine metal powders (generally <25 microns in diameter) are combined with a polymer binder system to form a feedstock suitable for injection molding. Kinetics' feedstock is compounded using specific binder and metal powder formulations to control consistency, quality, and dimensional repeatability of parts produced. While standard plastic injection molding machines and molds are used to produce MIM parts, due to the presence of the polymer binder in MIM feedstocks, mold cavities are designed approximately 20% larger than the final part size. Like plastics, MIM molds may have multiple cavities, inserts, slides, unscrewing cores, and hot runner systems. After molding, green parts are debound and sintered at temperatures up to 2,600°F. During debinding, the polymer binder breaks down and dissipates while the metal particles retain all of the molded features. The metal particles fuse together during sintering and the part shrinks approximately 20% to form a solid metal part. Information provided by Kinetics, Inc. |
Metal Injection Molding, UNS S17400, 17/4PH, 17-4 PH |