Design and Experimental Validation of a Process Chain for Thin Components Manufacturing by Micro Injection Molding Process

Micro-applications, especially in biomedical and optical sectors, require the fabricationof thin polymeric parts which can be commonly realized by micro-injection molding pro-cess. However, this process is characterized by a relevant constraint regarding the tool-ing. Indeed, the design and manufacturing of molds could be a very time-consuming stepand so, a significant limitation for the rapid development of new products. Moreover, ifthe design displays challenging microfeatures, their realization could involve the use ofmore than one mold for the fabrication of a single thin part. Therefore, proper integrationof different manufacturing microtechnologies may represent an advantageous method torealize such polymeric thin microfeatures. In this work, a micromanufacturing processchain including stereolithography, micromilling, and micro-injection molding isreported. The mold for the micro-injection molding process was fabricated by means ofstereolithography and micromilling, which allowed us to produce low-cost reconfigurablemodular mold, composed of insert support and a removable insert. The assessment of theproposed process chain was carried out by evaluating the dimensions and the surface fin-ishing and texturing of the milled mold cavities and molded components. Finally, a briefeconomic analysis compares three process chains for fabricating the micromold showingthat the proposed one reduces the manufacturing cost by almost 61% with the same pro-duction time.