TSE: High Temperature Micromolding of Aluminum Parts

该奖项是根据NSF/EPA环境研究伙伴关系（TSE 2001）颁发的。本文的研究目的是为了证明通过制造铝交叉流热交换器大规模复制高宽高比金属镜件的技术可行性。目前，通过高温微成型大规模复制铝零件的主要技术障碍是热/熔融铝与微模具之间的不良相互作用。这导致焊接，因此无法从模压铝部分分离模具。所要采取的方法是均匀地涂覆高度非平面的微模，使其能够在成型操作后将铝部件从微模中弹出。这将通过使用等离子辅助气相沉积技术在高纵横比微模具表面沉积具有均匀化学和机械性能的适形涂层来实现。微冷模是在路易斯安那州立大学高级微结构和器件中心使用深x射线光刻/电沉积微加工技术制造的。如果成功，这项研究将允许修改微模具的近表面特性，使模具/零件易于重复分离，从而消除通过高温微成型大规模复制铝零件的主要技术障碍。这将导致与紧凑型热交换器的创建相关的最终使用节能和效率的增加。

This award is made under the NSF/EPA Partnership for Environmental Research TSE 2001. The research objective of this effort is to demonstrate the technical feasibility of mass replication of high-aspect-ratio metallic miroparts by fabricating aluminum cross-flow heat exchanges. Currently a major technical barrier to mass replication of aluminum parts by high temperature micromolding is the undesirable interaction between the hot/molten aluminum and micromold. This leads to soldering and consequently the inability to separate the mold from the molded aluminum part. The approach to be taken is to uniformly coat highly nonplanar micromolds in a manner that it makes it possible to eject the aluminum part from the miromold after molding operation. This will be achieved by using plasma-assisted, vapor-phase deposition technology to deposit conformal coatings with uniform chemical and mechanical properties onto the surfaces of high-aspect-ratio micromolds. Mircomolds are fabricated using the deep X-ray lithography/electrodeposition based microfabrication technique at the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices at Louisiana State University.If successful, this research will allow modification of the near-surface properties of the micromold to enable easy and repeated mold/part separation, hence removing a major existing technical barrier in mass replication of aluminum parts by high temperature micromolding. This will lead to increased end-use energy savings and efficiencies associated with the creation of compact heat exchangers.