Injection Compression Molding (ICM) process development for the warpage and stress reduction on polymeric microfluidic chip applications

• Main Author: Ler, Wan Him
• Other Authors: Zhong Zhaowei
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/141743
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As the applications of microfluidic chip increases in the biomedical field, high quality chips with thinner and more precise properties will be demanded and a fabrication method that is able to mass produce quality chips will be needed. All microfluidic channel chip has a unique design based on its applications. However, the requirement of the blank chip is to have low warpage and thickness variation so that good bonding can be formed with the channel chip. By using the Moldflow simulation software, this report will be focused on simulating a large format blank cover chip that will be able to be machined into the dimensions of the channel chip used. A comparison will be made on the warpage variation and thickness variation of the blank chips produced by conventional injection molding (CIM) and injection compression molding (ICM). In addition, critical processing parameters of the ICM process such as the mold temperature, compression speed, compression gap and clamping force are optimized to minimize the warpage and thickness variation of the blank chip. The simulation results showed that there is a great improvement in the warpage variation by 29.7% when blank chip is produced using the ICM process instead of the CIM process. Gradually decreasing the compression speed and increasing mold temperature has a significant effect of improving the warpage variation of the blank chip produced by 17% and 16.1% respectively.