Evaluation of mould roughness influence approaching micro scale in injection process

Injection moulding of micro components is becoming more and more important for applications of micro system technologies in different fields (IT, Healthcare, Medicine) due to its ability to produce low-cost and high repeatable micro polymeric parts. However, when approaching micro scale level, different issues related to the process should be addressed, especially as the depth of the mould cavity becomes very thin. In particular, the mould roughness could affect not only the surface quality of the produced micro components, like in macro moulding, but also the complete filling of the moulded parts. This work aims to identify experimentally the effect of the roughness of thin mould cavity on filling capability in micro injection moulding process. Preliminary results of the experiments, carried out using POM material, are discussed in the paper and show that the surface roughness favours filling of the micro cavity.