On Metal Injection Molding Process for Tungsten Electrodes

Metal injection molding has been utilized to fabricate a deep cup in W-1.5 % La2O3 alloy with thin wall and high aspect ratio for the electrode application,including powder preparation,feedstock development,injection molding,debinding and sintering processes.This paper studies the effects of particle size of tungsten powder on the feedstock preparation and sintering process.Both the conventional sintering and active sintering with Ni element have been tried to compare the relative density of sintered parts.The final parts with the relative density higher than 98.3 % are obtained by using submicron tungsten powder or active sintering.