W.S.G. Isaac Newton

The internship was performed at DEMCON Metal Injection Molding in Enschede. Metal Injection Molding (MIM) is a relatively unknown process capable of accurately producing complex, relatively small metal parts, at high production quantities. The metal injection molding process consists of multiple steps, as directly injecting molten metal into a mold would result in problems. The feedstock used for MIM is a combination of fine metallic powder with polymeric binder material. This material is the heated till the melting temperature of this binder such that this polymer-metal  mix can be injection molded using convention injection molding machines. However, as the part now consist of a polymer-metal mix, it is really weak. Therefore, first this binder is removed by debinding. Which results in a even weaker, porous,  part. Finally ,the parts are transported towards a sintered oven. Here the metal particles sinter together, reducing the porosity of the part and increasing the strength. Using this process it is possible to produce almost 100% dense metal parts at high production ratios with far less scrap compared to processes such as milling.

During this internship my task was to model all the energy flows at DEMCON-MIM, and subsequently find manners for reducing the energy consumption during the MIM process. As MIM is a relatively unknown process, using custom machines at custom settings, little information was known about the energy input and output of each process. This information was derived by both analytical calculations as by measurements. The retrieved data was then validated using electricity consumption measurements.

During my internship I received a lot of freedom to create my own solutions to the problems at hand. I was even able to implement some improvements to the production process regarding energy usage during the internship. My supervisor was very helpful and interested in my internship, he provided guidance where needed and always made time to answer my questions. The colleagues I worked with at DEMCON – MIM were very nice and helpful as well. I learned a lot from working at DEMCON and would recommend them as an internship provider.