Industrial Polymer Microfabrication and Customized Manufacturing Combining Additive Manufacturing and Injection Molding

结合增材制造和注塑成型的工业聚合物微加工和定制制造

• 批准号: RGPIN-2015-05785
• 负责人: Sameoto, Daniel
• 金额: $ 1.6万
• 依托单位: University of Alberta
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=638548
• 关键词: Industrial; Polymer; Microfabrication; Customized; Manufacturing

This program proposes the merging of two key polymer manufacturing processes currently of tremendous industrial and academic interest: additive manufacturing (commonly referred to as 3D printing) and injection molding. Polymer based micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) uses traditional microfabrication technologies such as lithography, etching and plasma based processes. These polymer MEMS produce products such as disposable sensors, microfluidics, and superhydrophobic surfaces which are in general high value compared to most plastic products, but very inexpensive compared to silicon or glass based microfabricated products. While the quality can be extremely high, the cost structures of these traditional micromanufacturing techniques makes it more challenging to develop the low-cost and disposable devices that are the biggest advantage of polymer based microfabrication. However, newer advances in the field of 3D printing offers the possibility of producing highly complex micro and nanostructures dimensionally structured to provide novel properties compared to bulk polymer materials. These new functions include self-cleaning surfaces, anti-wetting materials and complex optical systems beyond what traditional lithography can achieve. 3D printing is tremendously exciting because it lowers the barriers to implement new design ideas or concepts without huge infrastructure investments to make the parts. However it is best for single part or low volume fabrication because the time to produce a structure is constant independent of production volume, rather than benefiting from economies of scale. On the other side of polymer microfabrication, injection molding is by far the most commercially important manufacturing technique and the lowest cost when working with high volume production (tens of thousands to millions of parts) and is the main driver behind the ubiquity of plastic products in our daily lives. It is economically unfeasible to apply injection molding to small volume runs due to the high costs of making the initial mold for the parts (potentially 10’s to 100’s of thousands of dollars for the mold). This research program will combine the low cost prototyping and tremendous design flexibility of additive manufacturing, and apply these 3D printed parts as direct or indirect molds for subsequent micro-injection molding. The primary aim is to investigate how to merge the benefits of these manufacturing technologies and develop new manufacturing techniques for microstructured polymer surfaces.  A secondary focus is the application of these microstructured surfaces to applications such as gecko-inspired adhesives and self-cleaning surfaces. In focusing on this research, it is also hoped that the rapid replication of a 3D printed part could be achieved with minimal extra costs, or mass customization of new products and materials can be achieved.

该计划提出将目前引起巨大工业和学术兴趣的两种关键聚合物制造工艺进行合并：增材制造（通常称为 3D 打印）和基于聚合物的微机电系统 (MEMS) 使用传统的微加工技术。这些聚合物 MEMS 生产的产品包括一次性传感器、微流体和超疏水表面，与大多数塑料产品相比，这些产品的价值通常很高，但价格却非常便宜。虽然质量非常高，但这些传统微制造技术的成本结构使得开发基于聚合物的微制造的最大优势是低成本和一次性设备更具挑战性。 3D 打印领域的进步提供了生产高度复杂的微米和纳米结构的可能性，这些结构具有与本体聚合物材料相比具有的新颖特性，这些新功能包括超越传统的自清洁表面、防湿材料和复杂的光学系统。光刻可以实现这一点，因为它降低了实施新设计理念或概念的障碍，而无需大量基础设施投资来制造零件，但它最适合单个零件或小批量制造，因为生产结构的时间是恒定的。与产量无关，而不是受益于规模经济。在聚合物微制造的另一方面，注塑成型是迄今为止商业上最重要的制造技术，并且在大批量生产（数万到数百万个零件）时成本最低。 ）并且是主要的由于制造零件的初始模具成本很高（模具可能需要数十至数百美元），因此在小批量生产中应用注塑成型在经济上是不可行的。该研究计划将结合增材制造的低成本原型制作和巨大的设计灵活性，并将这些 3D 打印零件用作后续微注射成型的直接或间接模具。如何融合这些制造技术的优点并开发微结构聚合物表面的新制造技术。第二个重点是这些微结构表面在壁虎粘合剂和自清洁表面等应用中的应用。还希望能够以最小的额外成本实现3D打印零件的快速复制，或者实现新产品和材料的大规模定制。