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Micromachines
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Soft Tooling — Polymer Additive Manufacturing Applied to Injection Moulding...
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Soft Tooling — Polymer Additive Manufacturing Applied to Injection Moulding Process Chains

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "D3: 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 May 2021) | Viewed by 15708

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Hans Nørgaard Hansen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Niels Koppels Allé, Building 404, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
Interests: metrology; micro manufacturing; additive manufacturing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Yang Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Produktionstorvet, 427A, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
Interests: soft tooling; injection molding; laser machining; surface microstructuring
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Injection molding (IM) is the primary method for the manufacture of polymer parts in mass production. A soft tooling process-chain that incorporates polymer 3D printing for mold fabrication will allow for an ultra-flexible manufacturing of medium-scale production series (e.g., from 1000 to 10,000 cycles by injection molding or similar). This method has the potential to replace the tool steel mold with a set of soft tool inserts made from polymer. Thus, the machining time and cost can be reduced significantly compared to conventional tooling processes based on milling, drilling, CNC tooling, etc. Additionally, additive manufacturing and novel process chains make it possible to produce parts with complex 3D geometry.

This Special Issue seeks research papers, short communications, and review articles that focus on novel development of soft tooling process chains and their applications. The scope covers all the relevant topics, including (but not limited to): tool life; precision and accuracy; novel process chains and applications; powder injection molding; materials modification; failure of the mold; modeling of the soft tooling process; process monitoring, control, and automation; functional surfaces; and metrology.

Prof. Hans Nørgaard Hansen
Dr. Yang Zhang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soft tooling
  • injection molding
  • 3D-printed mold
  • rapid tooling
  • precision
  • tool life

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 5597 KiB  
Article
Enabling Micro Injection Moulding Using a Soft Tooling Process Chain with Inserts Made of Mortar Material
by Kilian Krüger, Martin Kain, Yang Zhang, David Bue Pedersen, Matteo Calaon, Guido Tosello and Hans Nørgaard Hansen
Micromachines 2021, 12(8), 857; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12080857 - 22 Jul 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2439
Abstract
The manufacturing of inserts for micro injection moulding made of mortar material is presented in this work. The fabrication of the mortar insert described in this publication relied on a versatile and relatively fast rapid prototyping process based on soft tooling. The mortar [...] Read more.
The manufacturing of inserts for micro injection moulding made of mortar material is presented in this work. The fabrication of the mortar insert described in this publication relied on a versatile and relatively fast rapid prototyping process based on soft tooling. The mortar insert has a QR code with micro features on its surface, which was replicated in acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) polymer by the micro injection moulding process. With this approach, it is possible to fabricate hard inserts for micro injection moulding purposes that are able to compete with conventional-made inserts made of tool steel. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soft Tooling — Polymer Additive Manufacturing Applied to Injection Moulding Process Chains)
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13 pages, 1455 KiB  
Article
Feasibility Study of Soft Tooling Inserts for Injection Molding with Integrated Automated Slides
by Tobias Vieten, Dennis Stahl, Peter Schilling, Faruk Civelek and André Zimmermann
Micromachines 2021, 12(7), 730; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12070730 - 22 Jun 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3511
Abstract
The production of injection-molding prototypes, e.g., molded interconnect devices (MID) prototypes, can be costly and time-consuming due to the process-specific inability to replace durable steel tooling with quicker fabricated aluminum tooling. Instead, additively manufactured soft tooling is a solution for the production of [...] Read more.
The production of injection-molding prototypes, e.g., molded interconnect devices (MID) prototypes, can be costly and time-consuming due to the process-specific inability to replace durable steel tooling with quicker fabricated aluminum tooling. Instead, additively manufactured soft tooling is a solution for the production of small quantities and prototypes, but producing complex parts with, e.g., undercuts, is avoided due to the necessity of additional soft tooling components. The integration of automated soft slides into soft tooling has not yet been investigated and poses a challenge for the design and endurance of the tooling. The presented study covers the design and injection-molding trial of soft tooling with integrated automated slides for the production of a complex MID prototype. The design further addresses issues like the alignment of the mold components and the sealing of the complex parting plane. The soft tooling was additively manufactured via digital light processing from a silica-filled photopolymer, and 10 proper parts were injection-molded from a laser-direct structurable glass fiber-filled PET+PBT material before the first damage on the tooling occurred. Although improvements are suggested to enhance the soft tooling durability, the designed features worked as intended and are generally transferable to other part geometries. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soft Tooling — Polymer Additive Manufacturing Applied to Injection Moulding Process Chains)
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13 pages, 3971 KiB  
Article
Soft Tooling-Friendly Inductive Mold Heating—A Novel Concept
by Tobias Vieten, Davide Zanin, Andrea Knöller, Thomas Litwin, Wolfgang Eberhardt and André Zimmermann
Micromachines 2021, 12(4), 454; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12040454 - 17 Apr 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2502
Abstract
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 [...] Read more.
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. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soft Tooling — Polymer Additive Manufacturing Applied to Injection Moulding Process Chains)
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21 pages, 16556 KiB  
Article
Rapid Development of an Injection Mold with High Cooling Performance Using Molding Simulation and Rapid Tooling Technology
by Chil-Chyuan Kuo, Trong-Duc Nguyen, Yi-Jun Zhu and Shi-Xun Lin
Micromachines 2021, 12(3), 311; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12030311 - 16 Mar 2021
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 5724
Abstract
Rapid tooling technology (RTT) provides an alternative approach to quickly provide wax injection molds for the required products since it can reduce the time to market compared with conventional machining approaches. Removing conformal cooling channels (CCCs) is the key technology for manufacturing injection [...] Read more.
Rapid tooling technology (RTT) provides an alternative approach to quickly provide wax injection molds for the required products since it can reduce the time to market compared with conventional machining approaches. Removing conformal cooling channels (CCCs) is the key technology for manufacturing injection mold fabricated by rapid tooling technology. In this study, three different kinds of materials were used to fabricate CCCs embedded in the injection mold. This work explores a technology for rapid development of injection mold with high cooling performance. It was found that wax is the most suitable material for making CCCs. An innovative method for fabricating a large intermediary mold with both high load and supporting capacities for manufacturing a large rapid tooling using polyurethane foam was demonstrated. A trend equation for predicting the usage amount of polyurethane foam was proposed. The production cost savings of about 50% can be obtained. An optimum conformal cooling channel design obtained by simulation is proposed. Three injection molds with different cooling channels for injection molding were fabricated by RTT. Reductions in the cooling time by about 89% was obtained. The variation of the results between the experiment and the simulation was investigated and analyzed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soft Tooling — Polymer Additive Manufacturing Applied to Injection Moulding Process Chains)
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