Soft Tooling-Friendly Inductive Mold Heating-A Novel Concept.

Autor: Vieten T; University of Stuttgart, Faculty for Engineering Design, Production Engineering and Automotive Engineering, Institute for Micro Integration (IFM), Allmandring 9b, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany., Zanin D; University of Stuttgart, Faculty for Engineering Design, Production Engineering and Automotive Engineering, Institute for Micro Integration (IFM), Allmandring 9b, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany., Knöller A; Hahn-Schickard, Allmandring 9b, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany., Litwin T; University of Stuttgart, Faculty for Engineering Design, Production Engineering and Automotive Engineering, Institute of Design and Production in Precision Engineering, Pfaffenwaldring 9, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany., Eberhardt W; Hahn-Schickard, Allmandring 9b, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany., Zimmermann A; University of Stuttgart, Faculty for Engineering Design, Production Engineering and Automotive Engineering, Institute for Micro Integration (IFM), Allmandring 9b, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.; Hahn-Schickard, Allmandring 9b, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Micromachines [Micromachines (Basel)] 2021 Apr 17; Vol. 12 (4). Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Apr 17.
DOI: 10.3390/mi12040454
Abstrakt: In order to economize injection molded prototypes, additive manufacturing of, e.g., curable plastics based tools, can be employed, which is known as soft tooling. However, one disadvantage of such tools is that the variothermal process, which is needed to produce polymeric parts with small features, can lead to a shorter lifespan of the tooling due to its thermally impaired material properties. Here, a novel concept is proposed, which allows to locally heat the mold cavity via induction to circumvent the thermal impairment of the tooling material. The developed fabrication process consists of additive manufacturing of the tooling, PVD coating the mold cavity with an adhesion promoting layer and a seed layer, electroplating of a ferromagnetic metal layer, and finally patterning the metal layer via laser ablation to enhance the quality and efficiency of the energy transfer as well as the longevity by geometric measures. This process chain is investigated on 2D test specimens to find suitable fabrication parameters, backed by adhesion tests as well as environmental and induction tests. The results of these investigations serve as proof of concept and form the base for the investigation of such induction layers in actual soft tooling cavities.
Databáze: MEDLINE