Enabling Micro Injection Moulding Using a Soft Tooling Process Chain with Inserts Made of Mortar Material

Abstract

The manufacturing of inserts for micro injection moulding made of mortar material is presented in this work. The fabrication of the mortar insert described in this publication relied on a versatile and relatively fast rapid prototyping process based on soft tooling. The mortar insert has a QR code with micro features on its surface, which was replicated in acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) polymer by the micro injection moulding process. With this approach, it is possible to fabricate hard inserts for micro injection moulding purposes that are able to compete with conventional-made inserts made of tool steel.

Keywords

• micro injection moulding
• soft tooling
• hard tooling
• tool steel
• mortar
• concrete