Periodic Report Summary 2 - IMPRESS (Flexible Compression Injection Moulding Platform for Multi-Scale Surface Structures)
Project Context and Objectives:
IMPRESS targeted the development of a technological injection moulding platform for serial production of plastic components incorporating micro or nano scale functional features. The platform is based on the gathering of up to date and most advanced facilities based on three main modules, each of them being a tool box including several building blocks :
- a tool manufacturing module involving different technologies of micro- nano direct manufacturing, from top-down to bottom-up such as self-assembling,
- an injection moulding module including equipments fitted with up to date hardware to improve replication quality and capability,
- an intelligence module dedicated to advanced process control and online metrology integration.
Beside this large panel of facilities, three case studies have been developed (biolofy, health and energy), each of them requiring a specific and well defined surface micro-nano texturation. These case studies cover a very large range of nano-feature (from 100nm up to 1 µm) and component size (from 1 cm2 up to 1000 cm2). They served to qualify the capabilities of the different building blocks and allowed (i) to select the most suitable building blocks as of application requirements (ii) to learn about the platform working and (iii) to anticipate the technological future of the platform.
Finally, a technico-economic tool for decision making was developed, based on the IMPRESS case studies and thus to allow end-users to select the most appropriate configuration regarding the end product manufacturing requirements.
IMPRESS technological platform will accelerate the production and the time to market of micro nano-scale functional feature on multi-component devices in order to obtain an important reduction of needed supply chain space, technological risk and manufacturing costs of next generation plastic part products.
Project Results:
During this project, 22 exploitable results were obtained.
For the “Tool manufacturing module”, micro-nano structured inserts have been realized by CSEM, Cardiff University and CEA LITEN. These inserts are integrated into complex dedicated moulds made by Compose and Moldetipo, which gives us the possibility to benchmark innovative replication technologies.
Concerning the “Replication module”, the IMPRESS platform is now ready to produce, in an automatically way, with high precision and yield management, plastic components with micro-nanofeatures. It includes:
- A two-shot full electric injection-compression moulding machine developed by Billion, with a maximum clamping force of 200T.
- A vacuum unit, using the Fondarex® technology: it first applies vacuum in a 20L tank. Then, thanks to the signal from a sensor or the machine, the vacuum valve is switched to evacuate air from cavities and runner, in a few milliseconds (i.e. without affect on the cycle time).
- Three rapid heat and cool technologies driven by the injection moulding machine :
* Roctool® induction technology: the tool surface is rapidly heated by induction thanks to internal inductors.
* GWK® technology: it combines internal ceramic heaters with optimized cooling channels made by strato-conception.
* SINGLE technology, with high pressurized water up to 180°C
- A CO2 jet cleaning unit provided by ACP
Metrology tools to control online the quality of produced parts
A 6 axis Staubli robot
An online Process control, developed specifically for IMPRESS by Franhaufer IPA
Regarding the “Intelligence and reliability module”, innovative sensors have been provided by Kistler and integrated into our moulds. The process monitoring equipment developed by IPA follows sensors and digital process signals. A dedicated Expert System tool has been developed by PEP to help design of microstructures parts in plastics.
Last but not the least, 3 demonstrators have been developed and produced successfully on the platform:
- A patch of 9 microneedles for medical applications
- A Petri dish for biological applications
- And an overmoulded PV module for Energy applications.
Finally, IMPRESS has been a fantastic adventure, with complementary partners on the full process flow, and the project reach all the objectives it was supposed to achieve.
Potential Impact:
The expected final results were:
3 plastic products with advanced micro-nano features for energy (photovolatic modules), medical (drug delivery), and biology (cell analysis).
New design and modular moulds fabrication processes for the high precision IM process
Integrated and modular High Precision IM process with yield management
Quality control based on adapted control solutions
« Intelligence » of the platform : program expert and Advanced Process Control
The economical impact of the IMPRESS platform is :
A solution for sustainable innovation and manufacturing of micro-nanodeatures on plastic parts:
Cost efficiency with extensive adoption of standards in production
Low time to market
Quick and easy convertibility/re-configurability
Higher, stable product quality / high performance manufacturing
Better reusability of systems and applications
Global knowledge merging
Economic impact on strategic industry sectors
Health : hollow micro needle arrays for drug delivery
Biology : functionnal cell-culture slides
Energy : anti-reflective solar cells housing
Others : security/anti-counterfeiting, optics and CIT, medical, …
As described in the final PUDF (Deliverable 7.54) IMPRESS has produced 22 direct exploitable results:
1 « Boostreem » Linear Coating process for the fabrication of micro and nano-structured mould inserts
2 Process chain based on self-assembly processes (polymer demixing, nanosphere lithography, interference lithography) for the fabrication of nanostructure replication tools
3 Contact-free sensor for pressure measurements in mould cavities
4 Pilot mould
5 Rheological nozzle
6 Integrated mould for AHMN applications
7 Fully integrated mould for DIAG applications
8 Fully integrated mould for PV applications
9 Model based metrology for nanofeatures for inline production
10 Microparts inline metrology tool
11 Injection moulding production line cleaning technology
12 IMPRESS platform
13 Online process monitoring system encompassing sensor data for each cycle
14 Product quality model and system correlating sensor data and connecting the process monitoring to different quality classes
15 Module for real-time visualization of quality predictions and direct quality measurements
16 Plastic microneedle part
17 Functional drug delivery platform, incorporating a polymeric micro-moulded hollow micro-needle array
18 Solar cell anti-reflective housing, with a module architecture involving nanotexturation to eliminate reflexion losses
19 Nanostructured Petri dish for cell culture
20 Expert tool available with two external case studies analysis from the satellite group
21 New research program to exploit the knowledge collected in heat & cool technologies in new markets (composites)
22 Improvement of the quality of the network. Involvement in new projects
List of Websites:
http://www.impress-fp7.eu(si apre in una nuova finestra)
IMPRESS targeted the development of a technological injection moulding platform for serial production of plastic components incorporating micro or nano scale functional features. The platform is based on the gathering of up to date and most advanced facilities based on three main modules, each of them being a tool box including several building blocks :
- a tool manufacturing module involving different technologies of micro- nano direct manufacturing, from top-down to bottom-up such as self-assembling,
- an injection moulding module including equipments fitted with up to date hardware to improve replication quality and capability,
- an intelligence module dedicated to advanced process control and online metrology integration.
Beside this large panel of facilities, three case studies have been developed (biolofy, health and energy), each of them requiring a specific and well defined surface micro-nano texturation. These case studies cover a very large range of nano-feature (from 100nm up to 1 µm) and component size (from 1 cm2 up to 1000 cm2). They served to qualify the capabilities of the different building blocks and allowed (i) to select the most suitable building blocks as of application requirements (ii) to learn about the platform working and (iii) to anticipate the technological future of the platform.
Finally, a technico-economic tool for decision making was developed, based on the IMPRESS case studies and thus to allow end-users to select the most appropriate configuration regarding the end product manufacturing requirements.
IMPRESS technological platform will accelerate the production and the time to market of micro nano-scale functional feature on multi-component devices in order to obtain an important reduction of needed supply chain space, technological risk and manufacturing costs of next generation plastic part products.
Project Results:
During this project, 22 exploitable results were obtained.
For the “Tool manufacturing module”, micro-nano structured inserts have been realized by CSEM, Cardiff University and CEA LITEN. These inserts are integrated into complex dedicated moulds made by Compose and Moldetipo, which gives us the possibility to benchmark innovative replication technologies.
Concerning the “Replication module”, the IMPRESS platform is now ready to produce, in an automatically way, with high precision and yield management, plastic components with micro-nanofeatures. It includes:
- A two-shot full electric injection-compression moulding machine developed by Billion, with a maximum clamping force of 200T.
- A vacuum unit, using the Fondarex® technology: it first applies vacuum in a 20L tank. Then, thanks to the signal from a sensor or the machine, the vacuum valve is switched to evacuate air from cavities and runner, in a few milliseconds (i.e. without affect on the cycle time).
- Three rapid heat and cool technologies driven by the injection moulding machine :
* Roctool® induction technology: the tool surface is rapidly heated by induction thanks to internal inductors.
* GWK® technology: it combines internal ceramic heaters with optimized cooling channels made by strato-conception.
* SINGLE technology, with high pressurized water up to 180°C
- A CO2 jet cleaning unit provided by ACP
Metrology tools to control online the quality of produced parts
A 6 axis Staubli robot
An online Process control, developed specifically for IMPRESS by Franhaufer IPA
Regarding the “Intelligence and reliability module”, innovative sensors have been provided by Kistler and integrated into our moulds. The process monitoring equipment developed by IPA follows sensors and digital process signals. A dedicated Expert System tool has been developed by PEP to help design of microstructures parts in plastics.
Last but not the least, 3 demonstrators have been developed and produced successfully on the platform:
- A patch of 9 microneedles for medical applications
- A Petri dish for biological applications
- And an overmoulded PV module for Energy applications.
Finally, IMPRESS has been a fantastic adventure, with complementary partners on the full process flow, and the project reach all the objectives it was supposed to achieve.
Potential Impact:
The expected final results were:
3 plastic products with advanced micro-nano features for energy (photovolatic modules), medical (drug delivery), and biology (cell analysis).
New design and modular moulds fabrication processes for the high precision IM process
Integrated and modular High Precision IM process with yield management
Quality control based on adapted control solutions
« Intelligence » of the platform : program expert and Advanced Process Control
The economical impact of the IMPRESS platform is :
A solution for sustainable innovation and manufacturing of micro-nanodeatures on plastic parts:
Cost efficiency with extensive adoption of standards in production
Low time to market
Quick and easy convertibility/re-configurability
Higher, stable product quality / high performance manufacturing
Better reusability of systems and applications
Global knowledge merging
Economic impact on strategic industry sectors
Health : hollow micro needle arrays for drug delivery
Biology : functionnal cell-culture slides
Energy : anti-reflective solar cells housing
Others : security/anti-counterfeiting, optics and CIT, medical, …
As described in the final PUDF (Deliverable 7.54) IMPRESS has produced 22 direct exploitable results:
1 « Boostreem » Linear Coating process for the fabrication of micro and nano-structured mould inserts
2 Process chain based on self-assembly processes (polymer demixing, nanosphere lithography, interference lithography) for the fabrication of nanostructure replication tools
3 Contact-free sensor for pressure measurements in mould cavities
4 Pilot mould
5 Rheological nozzle
6 Integrated mould for AHMN applications
7 Fully integrated mould for DIAG applications
8 Fully integrated mould for PV applications
9 Model based metrology for nanofeatures for inline production
10 Microparts inline metrology tool
11 Injection moulding production line cleaning technology
12 IMPRESS platform
13 Online process monitoring system encompassing sensor data for each cycle
14 Product quality model and system correlating sensor data and connecting the process monitoring to different quality classes
15 Module for real-time visualization of quality predictions and direct quality measurements
16 Plastic microneedle part
17 Functional drug delivery platform, incorporating a polymeric micro-moulded hollow micro-needle array
18 Solar cell anti-reflective housing, with a module architecture involving nanotexturation to eliminate reflexion losses
19 Nanostructured Petri dish for cell culture
20 Expert tool available with two external case studies analysis from the satellite group
21 New research program to exploit the knowledge collected in heat & cool technologies in new markets (composites)
22 Improvement of the quality of the network. Involvement in new projects
List of Websites:
http://www.impress-fp7.eu(si apre in una nuova finestra)
