Injection/compression molding for micro pattern

미세패턴 성형을 위한 사출 압축 성형 공정 기술

The injection molding is very effective process for various plastic products due to its high productivity. It is also good fur precise products like optical parts. Various thermoplastic materials are also available with this injection molding process. In recent, however, as the overall size of the product increases and micro or nano scale of patterns are applied to the products, we now have some problems such as low fidelity of the replication of the pattern, high molding pressure, or warpage from the in-mold stress. Injection/compression molding is studied to overcome those problems in molding large thin plate with micro pattern array on its surface. An injection compression mold is designed to 3 pieces mold for side gate. We install 4 pressure transducers and 9 thermocouples to measure the melt pressure and surface temperature in the cavity during the process. As a result, the maximum molding pressure for injection compression molding is reduced to 1/3 compared to injection molding and the uniformity of the pressure in the cavity is enhanced by about 15%.