Characterisation of stainless steel microparts fabricated by soft moulding technique

A fabrication process of 316-L stainless steel microcomponents and characterisation of their surface roughness and porosity is presented. The fabrication process is divided into two parts. In the first part, SU-8 master moulds and their negative replicas from soft moulds are fabricated using photolithography and soft moulding techniques, respectively. The second part includes preparing stainless steel slurry using super fine stainless steel powder and binder, filling the soft moulds, obtaining the green parts, de-binding and sintering to the final parts. The resultant microparts reflect the same quality as the SU-8 master moulds. The surface roughness and porosity of the microparts are investigated using stereo imaging technique and X-ray microtomography, respectively. The average surface roughness Ra measures 132.2 nm and the overall porosity is found to be 4.5 .