Liquidmetal Technologies Inc (LQMT)

[truetrue]

ENGEL machine progress: Processing Liquidmetal® alloy is challenging because it is highly reactive to oxygen in its molten state. Thus Liquidmetal alloy must be processed quickly and under highly controlled vacuum.

***To meet these requirements, we have developed our 3rd Generation Liquidmetal Injection Molding system in cooperation with Engel (based in Austria).

We have utilized Engel’s standard plastics injection-molding platform as a foundation with simple bolt-on components.

Ingots of Liquidmetal are loaded into a machine, a cycle occurs, and after a few minutes a tree of Liquidmetal parts is extracted.

Because we process Liquidmetal alloy under a vacuum, the final surface finish is fine, lustrous and free of oxidation directly from the mold.

The parts can then be processed to simply remove the gates and runners.

Our current machines are designed for 100 gram shot charges per cycle. Since LM001B has a density of 6.0 g/cm3, the current maximum alloy volume is 16.7cm3.

The innovative single-stage Liquidmetal Injection Molding process is high precision, clean, efficient and achieves four things simultaneously:
•The feedstock material is transformed from crystalline to amorphous (solid liquid)
•The final net-shape part is formed (with minimal shrinkage)
•The as-cast surface properties are generated (beautiful as-molded finish rivals polished parts)
•The ultimate strength properties are generated (unsurpassed strength as-molded)

For most customers, the only post-processing step required is to remove the part from the runner which carries the alloy into the part geometry in the mold. This is in contrast to other processes that require secondary annealing, sintering, coating, polishing, or other steps to achieve the desired strength or appearance.

We have optimized our production equipment to improve final part quality and consistency while decreasing costs."


http://liquidmetal.com/our-process/liquidmetal-injection-molding/