Micro Injection Moulding of Polymeric Components

Micro components and micro devices are strongly used in several fields: IT components, biomedical and medical products, automotive industry, telecommunication area and aerospace. A micro component is characterized by small dimensions of the product itself or small dimensions of the functional features. The development of new micro parts is highly dependent on manufacturing systems that can reliably and economically produce micro components in large quantities. In this context, micro-electrical discharge machining (EDM) for mould production and micro-injection moulding of polymer materials are the key technologies for micro manufacturing. This paper will focus on the production and quality evaluation of polymeric micro components manufactured by micro injection moulding. In particular the authors want to investigate the process parameters on the overall quality of the product. The factors affecting micro flow behavior, components weights and dimension definition are experimentally studied basing on DoE approach and then discussed.