Development of titanium and titanium alloy by metal injection molding process

Abstract

The properties of typical pure Ti and Ti-6Al-4V alloys produced by Metal Injection Molding (MIM) process have been investigated in detail after optimization of the powder characteristic, debinding and sintering conditions for the process. (1) Sintered pure Ti using the blended in equal amount of hydrided-dehydrided and gas-atomized powders has better tensile strength (640MPa) and elongation (21%), which properties are similar to the JIS 3 grade of wrought pure Ti. (2) Sintered Ti-6Al-4V alloys produced by both mixed elemental and prealloyed powders have good tensile strength (970MPa) and elongation (12%), which are almost comparable to those of wrought Ti-6Al-4V alloys. (3) Polishability of sintered pure Ti is generally poor. However, the specific heat treatment leads to fairly improved polishability because of the grain refining which is also favorable for the mechanical properties.