The steam chest molding process is currently state of the art concerning the generation of three-dimensional polymeric foam components made from particle foams. An adaption of the high-frequency welding process shows advantages regarding the required energy and the used water. Due to the low dielectric loss factors of the most common foam materials (PE, PP, and PS), they cannot be heated sufficiently by an electric field. To enable heating of
Due to increasing automation and the associated rising demands on electronic assemblies, a suitable manufacturing process for large-scale production is needed to protect such products. The big challenge in this context is the low-stress encapsulation of the assemblies to protect them from external influences. In this study, the foam injection molding process was used to encapsulate FR4 (epoxy-based PCB) with Polyamid66 (PA66). The focus was on the production of a good assembly in terms of the quality of the bond and the media tightness. These parameters can be used to evaluate the protective effect against the surrounding. In the tests, a leakage rate of 0.025 m/min and shear stress of 6.5 MPa was achieved at low-foaming rates. This leakage is below the maximum acceptable threshold of 0.5 ml/min. The shear stress reaches values comparable to those in injection molding In addition to the requirements for leakage and composite quality, it could be shown that the internal mold pressure is reduced from 450 bar to below 10 bar by foaming. This can be used as the first indication of a reduced shear load on electronic components during over-molding. The suitability of the new solution concept is demonstrated.
The direct encapsulation of electronic components is an effective way of protecting components against external influences. In addition to achieving a sufficient protective effect, there are two other big challenges for satisfying the increasing demand for encapsulated circuit boards. The encapsulation process should be both suitable for mass production and offer a low component load. Injection molding is a method with good suitability for large series production but also with typically high component stress. In this article, two aims were pursued: first, the development of a calculation model that allows an estimation of the occurring forces based on process variables and material parameters. Second, the evaluation of a new approach for stress reduction by means of thermoplastic foam injection molding. For this purpose, simulation-based process data was generated with the Moldflow simulation tool. Based on this, component stresses were calculated with the calculation model. The suitability of the new approach was clearly demonstrated and a significant reduction in shear forces during overmolding was achieved. It was possible to demonstrate a process development that makes it possible to meet the two main requirements of direct encapsulation in addition to a high protective effect.
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