Eurecat, Centre Tecnològic de Catalunya, Advanced Manufacturing Systems Unit, Barcelona, Spain.
Ultrasion S.L., Parc Tecnològic del Vallès, Av. Universitat Autònoma 23, E-08290, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.
Ultrasonics. 2021 Jul;114:106418. doi: 10.1016/j.ultras.2021.106418. Epub 2021 Mar 6.
Ultrasonic moulding is a new technology that uses high power ultrasound to melt and mould thermoplastic polymers to produce samples with mini and micro features. The main feature of this technology is the use of ultrasonic energy as the heating source instead of a conventional injection screw. Even if ultrasonic moulding overcomes some of the drawbacks of conventional mini and micro-injection moulding, it still presents two main limitations that are hindering its widespread applicability: the lack of stability of the process and the difficulty to obtain samples with good mechanical properties for some materials. This article presents a new configuration, called nodal point ultrasonic moulding (NPUSM), to surmount such limitations. This configuration improves the stability of ultrasonic moulding technology and it is capable of processing materials with good mechanical properties. To prove its efficacy, the nodal point ultrasonic moulding configuration is used to obtain the processing window of a polyoxymethylene material and these results are compared with standard ultrasonic injection and conventional injection moulding. The results obtained show that NPSUM configuration improves the capabilities of ultrasonic moulding technologies.
超声塑模是一项新技术，它利用高功率超声将热塑性聚合物熔融并塑模，以生产具有迷你和微特征的样品。该技术的主要特点是使用超声能量作为加热源，而不是传统的注塑螺杆。尽管超声塑模克服了传统迷你和微注塑的一些缺点，但它仍然存在两个主要限制，阻碍了其广泛应用：工艺的不稳定性和难以获得某些材料具有良好机械性能的样品。本文提出了一种新的配置，称为节点超声塑模（NPUSM），以克服这些限制。这种配置提高了超声塑模技术的稳定性，并且能够加工具有良好机械性能的材料。为了证明其功效，使用节点超声塑模配置获得了聚甲醛材料的加工窗口，并将这些结果与标准超声注塑和传统注塑进行了比较。所得结果表明，NPSUM 配置提高了超声塑模技术的能力。
