Papers by Author: Satoru Matsuzaki

Abstract: A novel production method for porous metal components has been developed by applying powder space holder (PSH) method to metal powder injection molding (MIM) process. The PSH-MIM method has an industrial competitive advantage that is capable of net-shape manufacturing the micro-sized porous metal products with complicated shapes and controlled porosity and pore size. In this study, the small impeller with homogeneous micro-porous structure was manufactured by the PSH-MIM method using porous compounds composed of fine stainless steel 316L powder and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) particle. The effects of combinations in size and fraction of PMMA particle on dimensional tolerance and variation of sintered porous specimens were investigated. It was concluded that the PSH-MIM method could manufacture commercially micro-porous metal components with high dimensional accuracy.

Abstract: The production method for metal components with micro sized porous structure has been developed by applying “powder space holder method” to metal powder injection molding process. In this study, a co-sintering process was utilized to make a plate of sintered metal with micro porous graded structure. The green compact sheets with various contents of space hold particles were prepared by hot press molding for simplification. The five layers of metal with symmetric structure, which the skin layer was formed with high density metal and the core was formed with open or closed porous structure, or with inverse symmetry, was obtained by changing stacking sequence in co-sintering process. Mechanical properties of the materials with plain homogeneous porous structure and porous graded structure were compared. The usefulness of proposed method for producing the metal components with micro porous graded structure and the effective of graded structure to compensate the deficiencies on the mechanical property of porous metals was shown.