440C is available for Metal Injection Molding

What is 440C?

440C is one kind of the most hard steel materials, that is martensitic stainless steel with high carbon content and high chromium content. It has high hardness and strength, and good wear resistance. Therefore it’s used widely to make surgical instruments and tools, cutting inserts, bearings, and parts requiring great wear resistance in pumps and valves.

440C Fabrication

Many parts of stainless steel are made by precision casting, because stainless steel is difficult to be machined. However, precision casting results in unsatisfactory tolerance and surface roughness, and it’s limited by design geometry, and other defects, such as shrinkages, sand holes, etc. In recent years, powder metallurgy (PM) has been well developed and used widely for stainless steel parts. But PM can only achieve around 85% of theoretical density, which will worse the mechanical properties, wear resistance and appearance. Meanwhile, PM could only manufacture moderately complex parts.

440C in MIM

Metal Injection Molding, that is the latest near net-shaping technology of metal parts, has boomed, because it could make very complex parts with great properties by moderately low prices. It’s also regarded as the hottest forming technology.

However, few MIM manufacturer could utilize MIM to manufacture parts of 440C, because of many technical difficulties, especially 440C is easy to be deformed when sintered. NO.2 Machinery Co., Ltd has spent much money and human effort in the research of key procedures, such as debinding, sintering, etc, about 440C used in MIM, and successfully produced grinder blades made of 440C. Since then, NO.2 Machinery has developed it, and made it be applied widely.