Objective
During the project, the following results have been achieved:
* Process parameters to produce a wall thickness of 150 µm with titanium and Teflon( (PTFE) powder materials and 1100 nm fibber lasers
* Process parameters to produce smallest lateral structures of 20 µm and thinnest polymerisation depths of currently 120 µm with various liquid photo resins
* Development of a fast curing photo resin specially design for a wavelength of 480 nm and for lowest laser penetration depth
* Development of a new material deposition system and a sealed environment concept for sintering of powder materials
* Construction of an RP machine specially aimed for the simultaneous use for powder materials and liquid photo resins
Development of complete CAD/CAM chain.
Rapid Prototyping machines have been specialising in the rapid manufacturing of macrostructure's for many years. However, the market trend in engineering is currently moving towards the miniaturisation and development of smaller structures. The size and accuracy of such structures is often beyond the technical limits of rapid prototyping machines currently available. With the technology and demand now at hand, such a system would be a breakthrough for micro-prototyping in the semiconductor, medical and micromechanical industries. MIPRO answers this demand by employing state-of-the-art laser and robot technology. The market potential of microsystem technologies will be expected to have a volume of 12,5 Million ECU world-wide by the year 2000. The aim of this project will be to design and build such a rapid prototyping machine. This system should be able to manufacture structures with a maximum base size of 5xS cm and a maximal wall thickness of 100 m. To achieve this, the machine will be based on a fibre lasers (wavelengths 490 nm, 520 nm, 546 nm, 605 nm .. up to 1065 nm depending on the base material used) and a high precision micro-gantry robot. The use of powders would be made feasible with a specially designed powder deposition system equipped with an appropriate filter set-up and temperature stabilisation system. This will allow safe, clean and simple manufacturing of micro parts. The powder material that will be used is ceramic, glass, plastic and metal. The project will also include the use of liquid photo-polymers as a base material. The project will incorporate technology from a variety of scientific disciplines. Since the technological know-how is so diverse, the competencies required can only be found on a European level, which makes a European wide-consortium inevitable. The RTD partner (LZH) shall concentrate its research on the design/construction of the system and the general process tuning. This work will be supported by Microresist (photoresist manufacturer), for developing and selecting the appropriate photopolymer and Deskartes (RP CAD/CAM firm) for the CAD/CAM software aspect. This prototype system will be completed for industrial testing by the RTD performer. The system will then be rotated amongst the end users (4 European rapid prototyping jobshops) for thorough industrial testing. The final product will be improved and marketed by 4D, who are specialised in the marketing of research results.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftware
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrytransition metals
- engineering and technologymaterials engineering
- natural sciencesphysical scienceselectromagnetism and electronicssemiconductivity
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticslaser physics
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Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CRS - Cooperative research contractsCoordinator
NW10 7XF London
United Kingdom