Finite element modeling and numerical simulation of sintered tungsten components under hydrogen atmosphere

Powder injection molding (PIM) is a suitable technology for manufacturing of complex shapes with tungsten powders and has a great potential in many applications. Sintering is one of the most important steps in Powder Injection Molding process. The sintering behaviour of tungsten injection moulded components, under pure hydrogen atmosphere at temperature up to 1700°C using fine 0.4μm and coarse powders 7.0 μm, is investigated by means of the beam bending and dilatometric tests in the Setaram{copyright, serif} analyser. To simulate the shrinkage and shape distortion of tungsten injection moulded components during the sintering process using finite element methods, viscoplastic constitutive law is implemented in ABAQUS software as user subroutine UMAT and incorporated with the identified parameters. Comparison between the numerical simulations results and experimental ones, in term of shrinkages and sintered densities, shows good agreement between the two.