Rapid Manufacturing of Intelligent Mold With Embedded Microsensors

The objectives of this research are to integrate the laser-powered direct metallic rapid tooling (RT) system and the microelectromechanical-system (MEMS)-based microtemperature sensors, and to develop the intelligent direct metallic RT mold with embedded MEMS-based microsensors. Since the quantity demand for complicated mold of high-class products is increasing, the development of RT technology is also growing correspondingly fast. With the continuing improvement of semiconductor fabrication and MEMS techniques, it allows us to fabricate much smaller sensors. The MEMS-based microtemperature sensors have been successfully fabricated by MEMS technology. The sensors have been shown to have temperature effect, and were able to obtain accurate temperature measurement after calibration with real temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) ranging from -0.294 to -0.366%/degC. This microsensor-embedded approach is proposed in order to rapidly measure global and local temperature and pressure distribution inside the RT's core and cavity during the injection, hold, and cooling process. This research's approach with MEMS-based microtemperature sensors has demonstrated the feasibility and the advancement of another milestone in automated injection molding