10.1002/spepro.

000048

Enhancing cost-efficient
micro-molding production with
liquid crystal polymers
Alberto Gava and Giovanni Lucchetta

A liquid crystalline polymer is dispersed in a polyamide matrix in order

to improve mold quality replication and reduce process costs.
The surface quality that results when replicating microfeatures is one
of the most important process characteristics in injection molding, and
it constitutes a manufacturing constraint in applying the technique to
a wider range of micro-engineering applications. To achieve the required accuracy and prevent premature material freezing when producing high-aspect-ratio microfeatures, high injection pressures and mold
temperatures are required. However, the final properties of the molded
part are limited by the physical capabilities of the actual equipment.
Commercial materials have been developed for creating micromechanical devices using conventional molding techniques.1 Many of
these materials have limitations for practical applications because of
stringent requirements on both material flowability and mechanical
properties.2 To achieve the required accuracy for the finished part, materials with low melt viscosity are desirable.3 This can be achieved by
using liquid crystal polymer (LCP): noticeable viscosity reduction of
a polycarbonate (PC) resin has been observed by adding just a small
amount (2wt.%)4
We have used LCP to improve the molding of a high-ultimatestrength polyamide (nylon) 66 (PA66) and to investigate the effect
of such a processing aid in improving the molding performance in
terms of: the actual technological capabilities; improvement of the microstructure replication; and reduction of the process cost. First, we
produced several PA66-LCP blends at different LCP content by means
of a lab extruder. We chose an optimal LCP weight fraction of 15%
(as there was no evidence that extrusion torque was reduced by further
increasing the additive content). The plain PA66 and the PA66-LCP
blend were then characterized by means of a capillary rheometer. We
observed a viscosity reduction of 50% for the PA66-LCP blend at a
process temperature of 290 C.
We designed the form of the microstructures with the intention of
creating a geometry that could work as an effective test bench to

Figure 1. The mold surface microstructures used to test the LCPblended PA66.

demonstrate the effect of the blended LCP in terms of both pressure

reduction during the mold filling and degree of microstructure replication. To this end, we created a series of radial micro channels (Figure 1)
and divided them into four sectors, each composed of nine straight micro channels, the dimensions of which are shown in Table 1.
Molding experiments were carried out on a conventional molding
machine, using both the plain PA66 and the PA66-LCP blend. The experiments were conducted at different injection speeds. The injection
pressure, measured by means of a pressure transducer mounted at the

Table 1. Dimensions of the micro channels

Sectors
1
2
3
4

Width [mm]
0.3
0.11
0.05
0.11

Aspect ratios
0.8
1.5
2.5
3.6
Continued on next page

10.1002/spepro.000048 Page 2/2

Figure 2. Comparison of experimental pressure profiles for injection

speeds of 15 and 50mm/s.

machine nozzle, was selected as the response variable. Analysis of the

pressure profiles (partially reported in Figure 2), reveals that adding
LCP produces a useful pressure reduction at shorter filling times.
A precise determination of the microscopic structures and a comparison between the molded part and mold cavity were performed using a
multi-sensor coordinate measurement machine. The depths of the microchannels are reported in Figure 3, both for the PA66 and the PA66LCP moldings. From the comparison of the replication results, it is
clear that the degree of replication is strongly increased by employing
the LCP processing aid.
In this work, an additive based on a LCP has been used to aid the
molding of surface microstructures made of PA66. Results showed a
sharp improvement of the microstructure replication degree. This effect
could be exploited to enhance our ability to manufacture microscale
parts with higher aspect ratios. Furthermore, LCP additives have produced a useful pressure reduction at shorter filling times. Benefits of the
low viscosity and pressure in application include a significant decrease
of both cycle time and the required clamping force.

Figure 3. Depths of the microchannels: red bars represent mold cavity

depth and blue bars molded part depth.

Author Information

References

Alberto Gava and Giovanni Lucchetta

Department of Innovation in Mechanics and Management
University of Padova
Padova, Italy

1. U. A. Theilade and H. N. Hansen, Surface microstructure replication in injection molding, Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol., pp. 157166, 2007.
2. L. C. Wu, P. Chen, J. Chen, J. Zhang, and J. S. He, Noticeable viscosity reduction of polycarbonate melts caused jointly by nano-silica filling and TLCP fibrillation, Pol. Eng.
and Science, pp. 757764, 2007.
3. B. Sha, S. Dimov, and C. Griffiths, Investigation of micro injection moulding: factors
affecting the replication quality, J. Mat. Proc. Technol., pp. 284296, 2007.
4. J. Zhao, X. H. Lu, G. Chen, and Y. K. Juay, Polymeric micro device moulding assisted
by a liquid crystalline polymer processing aid, SIMTech technical reports, pp. 510.

c 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE)