TSE: High Temperature Micromolding of Aluminum Parts

该奖项是根据NSF/EPA环境研究TSE 2001伙伴关系颁发的。 这项工作的研究目标是通过制造铝错流热交换器来证明大规模复制高深宽比金属微型零件的技术可行性。 目前，通过高温微成型大量复制铝部件的主要技术障碍是热/熔融铝和微模具之间的不期望的相互作用。 这导致焊接，并因此导致不能将模具与模制的铝部件分离。 要采取的方法是以这样的方式均匀地涂覆高度非平面的微模具，即，使得可以在模制操作之后从微模具中排出铝部件。 这将通过使用等离子体辅助的气相沉积技术在高纵横比微模具的表面上存款具有均匀化学和机械性能的保形涂层来实现。 微模具是由路易斯安那州立大学先进微结构和器件中心采用基于深X射线光刻/电沉积的微加工技术制造的，如果成功的话，这项研究将允许修改微模具的近表面特性，使模具/部件能够容易和重复地分离，从而消除了通过高温微成型大量复制铝部件的主要现有技术障碍。 这将导致与紧凑型热交换器的创建相关的最终用途节能和效率的提高。

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.