Injection molding of polymeric micro-mixer

• Main Author: Loh, Eric Chee Soon.
• Other Authors: Tor Shu Beng
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Manufacturing::Polymers and plastics; DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Machine design and construction
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/38941
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Injection Molding is an important process used in the manufacture of microfluidic devices. In this project, two polymers – polymethyl metacrylate (PMMA) and Cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) are studied to understand the effects of molding parameters and to achieve industrial standard quality yield. This is done by applying Design of Experiment (DOE) method using Minitab on six factors- Injection Pressure, Injection Velocity, Melt Temperature, Barrel Temperature, Holding Pressure and Holding Time. The optimized parameters were determined to be high injection pressure and low mold temperature for PMMA and low parameters for injection pressure, injection velocity and barrel temperature for COC. Finally, it is concluded that it is easier to obtain the optimum parameters for PMMA but COC will eventually yield a higher process capability to achieve a higher six sigma quality assurance that will benefit any industry.