Experimental Investigation of Key Parameters On The Effects of Cavity Surface Roughness in Microinjection Molding
Experimental Investigation of Key Parameters On The Effects of Cavity Surface Roughness in Microinjection Molding
Experimental Investigation of Key Parameters On The Effects of Cavity Surface Roughness in Microinjection Molding
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, plastic microparts have been used
extensively in various elds such as medical technology,
biotechnology, optics, telecommunication, and microuidics. Examples of products include pressure sensors, biological reactors, optical switches, ber connectors, micromotor and gears, and micropumps and valves [13].
Correspondence to: N.S. Ong; e-mail: [email protected]
Contract grant sponsors: Nanyang Technological University, Moldow
Pty. Ltd.
DOI 10.1002/pen.20981
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
C 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers
V
Injection molding is one of the most common processes for cost-effective mass production of plastic microparts. Compared with conventional injection molding (i.e.,
macroinjection molding), microinjection molding requires
higher injection pressure, injection rate, and mold temperature to achieve good quality molded parts [49]. Evacuation tools are usually needed to avoid incomplete lling
or degradation of polymer caused by entrapped air [2, 6].
Moreover, the factors such as viscous dissipation [7, 10,
11], wall slip [1215], and mold surface roughness [16
19], which are insignicant in conventional injection
molding, may play an important role in microinjection
molding.
For perfect polymer-mold interface (i.e., there is no
gap between polymer and mold contact interfaces), mold
surface roughness will enhance heat transfer, as heat
transfer rate is proportional to the contacted surface area
[17]. However, for imperfect polymer-melt interface,
mold surface roughness will increase thermal contact resistance, and thus resist heat transfer between polymer
and mold [20, 21].
In our previous work [22], the effects of surface roughness have been investigated experimentally through molding of a microthickness disk. However, only one core
insert was machined and used in the experiment. Moreover, the factors such as melt temperature and the cavity
thickness on the effects of cavity roughness were not
claried. In this work, three more core inserts, each of
which has different surface roughness on its two semicircular halves but with the same roughness mean lines,
were machined and formed the mold cavity. The ow
areas of the molded parts were measured more precisely
with the aid of graph digitalization software. The key parameters such as mold and melt temperatures and cavity
thickness on the effects of surface roughness were studied
through linear regression analysis.
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
Injection molding of microthickness disks using
POM (Ultraform W2320 003) was performed on a 5-ton
POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE-2008
FIG. 1. Schematic diagram of: (a) the mold cavity and (b) the molded
part.
Core insert
Insert I (center)
Insert I (above)
Insert I (below)
Average
Insert II (center)
Insert II (above)
Insert II (below)
Average
Insert III (center)
Insert III (above)
Insert III (below)
Average
Rougher
half Ra (lm)
Smoother
half Ra (lm)
Dd
(lm)
3.23
4.55
4.59
4.12
6.78
5.80
5.60
6.06
3.69
3.40
3.80
3.63
0.24
0.24
0.22
0.23
0.27
0.25
0.25
0.26
0.25
0.27
0.28
0.27
4.00
211.00
1.50
21.83
0.50
0.50
0.00
0.33
6.00
25.00
29.00
22.67
Ra (lm)
Cavity insert
Cavity wall (center)
Cavity wall (above)
Cavity wall (below)
Average
0.032
0.038
0.037
0.076
line obtained through regressive tting of the experimental data using the linear function as follows:
Ar kAt
(1)
FIG. 4. Fitted-lines against experimental data for insert I with: (a) Tmelt
453 K and (b) Tmelt 473 K.
DOI 10.1002/pen
was 300 lm. For insert III, it was 250 lm. For every
change in the parameter setting, specimens were collected
only after 10 cycles of the injection process. This was to
stabilize the parameter setting and to obtain consistent
molded parts.
FIG. 6. Fitted-lines against experimental data for insert III with: (a)
Tmelt 453 K and (b) Tmelt 473 K.
POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE-2008 493
FIG. 9. The k values for different melt and mold temperatures for
inserts I with the cavity thickness of 300 lm and III with the cavity
thickness of 250 lm.
for insert II, when the mold and melt temperatures and
cavity thickness are kept constant. This is because the
roughness on the rougher half of insert I (Ra 4.12 lm)
is lower than that of insert II (Ra 6.06 lm), and the
smoother halves of the two inserts have comparable surface roughness values (e.g., 0.23 and 0.26 lm, respectively). This demonstrates the signicance of surface
roughness effects, i.e., the higher the surface roughness,
the smaller is the k value.
Figure 9 shows the k values for various melt and mold
temperatures for insert I and III. It can be observed that
the k value for insert III is much smaller than that of
insert I when mold and melt temperatures are kept constant, although the two inserts have similar roughness
(i.e., 4.12 and 3.63 lm on the rougher halves, and 0.23
and 0.27 lm on the smoother halves). This is mainly
because of the difference in cavity thicknesses used for
the two inserts (300 and 250 lm, respectively), i.e., the
smaller the cavity thickness, the more signicant are the
roughness effects.
CONCLUSION
FIG. 8. The k values for various melt and mold temperatures for inserts
I (DRa 2.06 lm) and II (DRa 6.13 lm) with the same cavity thickness of 300 lm.
494 POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE-2008
DOI 10.1002/pen
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