Modeling and experimental analysis in lifespan of a precision epoxy resin mold

Abstract

Micro-hot embossing is a highly effective process for fabricating micro-devices with microfeatures in polymeric materials. One of the most troublesome problems in precision machinery industry is the time and expense needed to produce a mold for microreplication. Epoxy resin mold has been successfully employed for microreplication using micro-hot embossing. However, the junction of the groove and sprue of the backing plate has serious local stress concentration, leading to the reduction of lifespan of a precision epoxy resin mold during the micro-hot embossing molding. This work presents an effective method for enhancing the lifespan of a precision epoxy resin mold using reduction of local stress concentration. The numerical models were developed for predicting the maximum stress using ANSYS software. The ANSYS simulations have been carried out and the predicted results show good agreement with experimental tests. The junction of the groove and sprue of the backing plate was machined with chamfer to revaluate lifespan of the epoxy resin mold using micro-hot embossing molding. Micro-hot embossing verification test showed that the lifespan of epoxy resin mold with chamfer is about 2.2 times that of the conventional epoxy resin mold.