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Micro Injection Molding of Thin Cavities Using Stereolithography for Mold Fabrication
Content Provider | MDPI |
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Author | Surace, Rossella Basile, Vito Bellantone, Vincenzo Modica, Francesco Fassi, Irene |
Copyright Year | 2021 |
Description | At the present time, there is a growing interest in additive manufacturing (AM) technologies and their integration into current process chains. In particular, the implementation of AM for tool production in micro injection molding (µ-IM), a well-established process, could introduce many advantages. First of all, AM could avoid the need for the time-consuming and expensive fabrication of molds for small series of customized products. In this work, the feasibility, quality, and reliability of an AM/µ-IM process chain were evaluated by designing and fabricating mold inserts for µ-IM by stereolithography (SLA) technology; the mold inserts were characterized and tested experimentally. The selected geometry is composed of four thin cavities: This particular feature represents an actual challenge for both the SLA and µ-IM perspective due to the large surface-to-volume ratio of the cavity. Two different materials were used for the mold fabrication, showing sharply different performance in terms of endurance limit and cavity degradation. The obtained results confirm that the µ-IM process, exploiting an SLA fabricated mold insert, is feasible but requires great accuracy in material choice, mold design, fabrication, and assembly. |
Starting Page | 1848 |
e-ISSN | 20734360 |
DOI | 10.3390/polym13111848 |
Journal | Polymers |
Issue Number | 11 |
Volume Number | 13 |
Language | English |
Publisher | MDPI |
Publisher Date | 2021-06-02 |
Access Restriction | Open |
Subject Keyword | Polymers Manufacturing Engineering Micro Injection Molding Mold Thin Cavity Additive Manufacturing Stereolithography |
Content Type | Text |
Resource Type | Article |