Powder injection molding (PIM) is widely used to manufacture complex-shaped ceramic and metal components in high production volumes. In order to design and fabricate PIM components, it is important to know a number of material properties at different powder- polymer compositions. In this thesis, several predictive models for estimating rheological, thermal and mechanical properties as a function of powder-polymer mixtures were evaluated using experimental data obtained from the literature. Based on this survey, models were selected for predicting rheological, thermal and mechanical properties for aluminum nitride-polymer mixtures at various volume fractions of powder using experimental measurements of unfilled and filled polymers. The material properties were estimated for two aluminum nitride powder-polymer mixtures and used in mold-filling simulations. These results will provide new perspectives and design tools for identifying useful material compositions, component geometry attributes, and process parameters while eliminating expensive and time-consuming trial-and-error practices prevalent in PIM. / Graduation date: 2013