Industrial Polymer Microfabrication and Customized Manufacturing Combining Additive Manufacturing and Injection Molding

该计划提出了两种目前在工业和学术上极具兴趣的关键聚合物制造工艺的合并：添加剂制造(通常指3D打印)和注塑成型。基于聚合物的微电子机械系统(MEMS)使用传统的微细加工技术，如光刻、蚀刻和基于等离子体的工艺。这些聚合物MEMS生产一次性传感器、微流体和超疏水表面等产品，与大多数塑料产品相比，这些产品通常价值较高，但与基于硅或玻璃的微加工产品相比非常便宜。虽然质量可能非常高，但这些传统微制造技术的成本结构使开发低成本和一次性设备变得更具挑战性，而这些设备是聚合物微制造的最大优势。然而，3D打印领域的最新进展为制造高度复杂的微结构和纳米结构提供了可能性，与块状聚合物材料相比，这些结构可以提供新的性能。这些新功能包括自清洁表面、防湿材料和传统光刻无法实现的复杂光学系统。3D打印非常令人兴奋，因为它降低了实施新设计想法或概念的门槛，而不需要巨大的基础设施投资来制造部件。然而，它最适合于单个部件或小批量制造，因为制造结构的时间与生产量无关，而不是受益于规模经济。另一方面，在聚合物微加工的另一边，注塑成型是迄今为止最具商业意义的制造技术，在大批量生产(数万到数百万个部件)时成本最低，是我们日常生活中塑料产品无处不在的主要驱动力。将注射成型应用于小批量生产在经济上是不可行的，因为制造零件的初始模具的成本很高(模具的成本可能从10‘S到100’S高达数千美元)。该研究项目将结合低成本的原型制造和添加制造的巨大设计灵活性，并将这些3D打印部件用作后续微注射成型的直接或间接模具。主要目的是研究如何融合这些制造技术的优点，并开发微结构聚合物表面的新制造技术。*第二个重点是将这些微结构表面应用于壁虎启发的粘合剂和自清洁表面等应用。在专注于这项研究的同时，也希望能够以最小的额外成本实现3D打印部件的快速复制，或者实现新产品和材料的大规模定制。

This program proposes the merging of two key polymer manufacturing processes currently of tremendous industrial and academic interest: additive manufacturing (commonly referred to as 3D printing) and injection molding. Polymer based micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) uses traditional microfabrication technologies such as lithography, etching and plasma based processes. These polymer MEMS produce products such as disposable sensors, microfluidics, and superhydrophobic surfaces which are in general high value compared to most plastic products, but very inexpensive compared to silicon or glass based microfabricated products. While the quality can be extremely high, the cost structures of these traditional micromanufacturing techniques makes it more challenging to develop the low-cost and disposable devices that are the biggest advantage of polymer based microfabrication. However, newer advances in the field of 3D printing offers the possibility of producing highly complex micro and nanostructures dimensionally structured to provide novel properties compared to bulk polymer materials. These new functions include self-cleaning surfaces, anti-wetting materials and complex optical systems beyond what traditional lithography can achieve. 3D printing is tremendously exciting because it lowers the barriers to implement new design ideas or concepts without huge infrastructure investments to make the parts. However it is best for single part or low volume fabrication because the time to produce a structure is constant independent of production volume, rather than benefiting from economies of scale. On the other side of polymer microfabrication, injection molding is by far the most commercially important manufacturing technique and the lowest cost when working with high volume production (tens of thousands to millions of parts) and is the main driver behind the ubiquity of plastic products in our daily lives. It is economically unfeasible to apply injection molding to small volume runs due to the high costs of making the initial mold for the parts (potentially 10’s to 100’s of thousands of dollars for the mold). This research program will combine the low cost prototyping and tremendous design flexibility of additive manufacturing, and apply these 3D printed parts as direct or indirect molds for subsequent micro-injection molding. The primary aim is to investigate how to merge the benefits of these manufacturing technologies and develop new manufacturing techniques for microstructured polymer surfaces.  A secondary focus is the application of these microstructured surfaces to applications such as gecko-inspired adhesives and self-cleaning surfaces. In focusing on this research, it is also hoped that the rapid replication of a 3D printed part could be achieved with minimal extra costs, or mass customization of new products and materials can be achieved.