Precision Molding of Metallic Micro-Components

这个项目涉及具有摩擦学、材料和精密工程专业知识的研究人员之间的跨学科互动。大块金属玻璃是一种可以以极低的成本大规模生产任意几何形状的高强度微构件的材料。使用这些材料的微成型技术的成功开发将使微系统发生革命性变化，并使许多全新的微设备类别成为可能。PI表明，某些块状金属玻璃可以在低温(350摄氏度-400摄氏度)下模制成微米或可能亚微米大小的特征，并保持其高强度。大块金属玻璃在过冷液体状态下流动的能力似乎非常适合于使用微模塑工艺进行大规模生产。在该项目期间，将表征与大块金属玻璃加工相关的材料特性。这将被用来确定将这种金属玻璃强制进入微型部件模具的工艺参数。模压微部件特征的准确性将使用压花技术进行评估，其中包括三个主要工艺参数：压力、温度和压花速度。作为该项目的一部分，集成产品和工艺设计(IPPD)组的一些本科生将致力于特定设备和系统的设计。IPPD的学生来自7个不同的工程和商业部门，通常从事行业提交的项目。佛罗里达大学拥有最多的拉丁裔学生，PI打算利用IPPD项目中的密切互动来招收这些少数族裔学生进入研究和研究生项目。在本项目结束时，将建立一个知识库，使一类全新的产品能够在广泛的微观和中观系统中得到应用。

This project involves an interdisciplinary interaction between researchers with expertise in tribology, materials, and precision engineering. Bulk metallic glasses are materials that may permit the mass production of high strength micro-components of arbitrary geometry at extremely low cost. The successful development of micro-molding technology with these materials will revolutionize micro-systems and enable numerous wholly new classes of micro-devices. The PIs have shown that certain bulk metallic glasses can be molded to produce micron sized or potentially sub-micron sized features at low temperatures (350C-400C), and retain their high strengths. The ability to flow the bulk metallic glasses in the supercooled liquid state appears to be ideally suited for mass production using a micro-molding process.During the project, the material properties relevant to processing of bulk metallic glasses will be characterized. This will be used to determine the processing parameters for forcing this metal glass into molds for micro-components. Accuracy of molded micro-component features will be assessed using an embossing technique with three primary processing parameters varied: pressure, temperature, and embossing rate. As part of this project, some of the undergraduate students in the Integrated Product and Process Design (IPPD) group will work on the design of specific devices and systems. The IPPD students are from 7 different engineering and business departments and typically work on industry-submitted projects. The University of Florida has one of the largest populations of Latino students, and the PIs intend to utilize the close interaction in the IPPD program to recruit these minority students into research and the graduate program. At the conclusion of this project, a knowledge base will have been created to enable a whole new class of products with applications in a wide range of micro and meso-scale systems.