Polymer Engineering and Science, Vol.45, No.11, 1471-1478, 2005
Accuracy and mechanical properties of multiparts produced in one mold in microinjection molding
The use of plastic materials with added fillers has become a potential alternative due their versatility and the ease of batch fabrication. Recently, micromolding has become a new branch of injection molding. One mold can be used to produce multiparts that weigh no more than a few milligrams and whose precision in terms of dimension is on the order of a few microns. This work investigates the shrinkage and accuracy of multiparts in one mold used in microinjection molding. In addition, the wear and mechanical properties of polymer composites with added fillers are systematically studied. Experiments showed that microparts with a 1.5 mm outer diameter were well duplicated, with clear structural definition. The average deviation in dimension was less than 20 mu m. The resulting composites with 20-25 wt% glass particles exhibited significant improvement in shrinkage, wear resistance, and mechanical strength. In addition, wear loss was minor, and lubrication was not needed when the roughness of the wearing surface was less than 0.064 mu m.