The main objective of the present study is to predict the process window of injection-compression molding corresponding to the capability of an injection machine for fabricating 7 inch LGP. The open distance and volume filled after injection stage were found to be two important factors that affect critical requirements such as flow length, injection pressure and clamping force for the process. Process window for the key factors was also predicted by response surface method. As a result, predicted process window for open distance and volume filled after injection stage satisfying the critical requirement with a given injection machine was in the range of 60 ~ 75%, and 104.00 ~ 104.25%, respectively.

Recently, according to the rapid development of display, many display applications, such as, cellular phone, navigation, monitor and LCD TV have been changed from CRT type to LCD type. BLU(Back Light Unit) is one of main parts in LCD unit and generally, it consists of a light source, a reflective sheet, a LGP(Light Guide Plate), a diffuser sheet, and two prism sheets. The most important component of BLU is a light guide plate, which diffuses the input light to the TFT-LCD module uniformly. The LGP is usually made by injection molding process, and it has numerous optical micro patterns on the surface. In the present study the micro-patterned stamper which has cylindrical shape was fabricated by using the UV-LiGA process. And the replication characteristics have been compared among three different kinds of injection molding process; general injection molding, injection/compression molding and RHCM(Rapid Heating and Cooling Molding). Average replication ratios of CIM and ICM were 19.1% and 64.6%, respectively. On the other hand, the average replication ratio of RHCM process showed the higher value of 98.4% among these. It show that maintaining the mold surface above $T_g$ could increase the replication ratio of micro patterns substantially.

Recently, analyzing system is studying for applying to biomedical engineering field, actively. Micro fluidics control system has been manufactured using LIGA (Lithographie Galvanoformung und Abformung), Etching, Lithography and Laser etc. However, it is difficult that above-mentioned methods are applied to fabrication of precision mold master efficiently because of long processing time and rising cost of equipments. Therefore, in this study, micro EDM and micro WEDG system were developed to analyze machining characteristics with tool wear, surface roughness and process time. Then, optimal machining conditions could be obtained from the results of analysis. As the results, mold master of staggered herringbone mixer which has a high mixing efficiency, one of passive mixer of Lab-on-a-chip, could be fabricated from micro pattern(< 50um) using micro EDM successfully.

For the fabrication of nano patterned products manufacturing a nano patterned mold is needed in advance. The nano patterned stamper was fabricated by electroforming the AAO master with nickel. The surface of nickel-plated stamper had nano-patterned holes with the diameter of 73 nm and the depth of 83 nm. Hot embossing was used for forming P3HT sheet and the process factors of hot embossing were closer as pressure, temperature and time. In the present paper hot embossing experiments were performed to find the main process conditions to affect the replication ratio of nano patterns on surface of P3HT sheet. As a result, main contributing factors for the replication ratio of hot embossed pattern could be sequentially enumerated as pressure, temperature and time.

In the design of the injection molding process, various parameters including mold design parameters and molding conditions should be investigated to improve part quality. The mold temperature is one of important processing parameters that affect the flow characteristics, surface appearance, part deformation, mechanical properties, etc. Numerical analyses have been used to predict the temperature distribution of the mold under the given cooling or heating conditions. However, conventional analyses have been performed by assuming that the mold material is a single solid even though a number of plates are assembled to construct an injection mold. In the present study, a numerical approach considering the thermal contact resistance is proposed to provide more reliable prediction of the mold temperature distribution by reflecting the heat-resistance between assembled mold plates.

Meso-scale or micro-scale forming of sheet metal parts has been recently considered as one of the important forming technologies with growing demand on meso/micro products for electric or medical devices. Experimental investigation on the cylindrical meso-cup drawing with hemispherical punch is carried out to examine the limit drawing ratio and thickness distribution of drawn cups. The working parameters chosen in this study are blank diameter, die-corner radius and blankholding force. It is found from the experiments that the limit drawing ratio of 2.4 can be achieved in the case of hemispherical cup drawing and uniform thickness distribution in wider region can be obtained compared with the results of conventional cup drawing.

Recently, with the merits of simplicity, ease of mass production and cost effectiveness, a roll-to-roll (R2R) forming process is tried to be employed in the manufacturing of the circuit board, barrier ribs and other electronic device. In this study, the roll-to-roll process for the forming of micro-pattern in electronic device panel is designed and analyzed. In the preliminary experiments, two major defects, i.e., crack near the dimple wall and wrinkling on outside region of dimple, are found. The study on the crack prevention is carried out in previous works by authors. In this study, the cause of wrinkling and modification of tooling to prevent the wrinkling is studied. The main cause of wrinkling is considered to be the uneven material flow along the rolling direction. To reduce or to retard the wrinkling initiation, a dummy shape on outside the pattern is introduced. From the finite element analysis results, it is shown that the dummy shape can reduce the uneven material flow significantly. Finally the effect of dimensions of the dummy shape on material flow is investigated and the optimum dimensions are found.

Fasteners are used to join the various electronic products and machines. So, the quality and reliability of the fastener are strongly requested. In this study, the analyses of the multi-stage cold forging of TORX screws for storage parts are carried out. In manufacturing of TORX screws, crack and folding defects are observed. Therefore, the analysis is focused on the prediction of the defects. Based on the analysis results, the upper die and process conditions are redesigned to reduce the defects. The upper die shape for preform forming is redesigned to prevent folding and sharp shape change. The Cockroft-Latham damage criterion is introduced to predict the crack initiation. Analysis results shows that the maximum Cockroft-Latham damage value is decreased by 40% in the forming using the modified upper die.

Optical properties in injection molded plastic lenses for mobile phone camera have been simulated using commercial program, 3D TIMON. Four plastic lenses are being used in mobile phone camera. The quality of photographs taken by mobile phone camera is strongly depends upon optical characteristics of lenses. The variety of optical properties has been investigated according to the injection conditions through the computer simulation. Consequently optimal injection conditions for four lenses have been determined and simulation results of birefringence have been compared with experiments.

BLU(back light unit) is one of kernel parts of LCD(liquid crystal display) unit. New 3-D micro-lens pattern for LGP(light guide plate), one of the most important parts of LCD-BLU, had been researched. Instead of dot pattern made by chemical etching or laser ablation, SCS(slanted curved surface) micro-lens pattern was designed with optical CAE simulation. This study introduce the method of design using optical CAE simulation for SCS micro-lens, the new fabrication method of micro-mold with SCS micro-lens pattern.

In this study, we have investigated bonding of metal and plastic parts with single planar interface. This is facilitated by surface processing of aluminum sheet, which consists of slitting and punching, followed by insert-molding of polybuthylelne terephthalate(PBT). An injection mold has been built to fabricate specimen. After processing of the specimen, tensile and bending shear adhesion tests have been fulfilled according to KS M3734 and KS M3723, respectively. We also have conducted simulation of tensile and bending shear adhesion tests. Based on the tests results, the proposed bonding method outperforms existing methods based on adhesion.

The flashing reduces the part quality and the productivity of the molding process. We developed a contact pressure sensor to detect the flashing immediately. The performance of the sensor was analyzed in a simple 2D simulation. The sensor was applied to an automotive bumper mold with cavity pressure sensors. It showed sensitive output signal for the mold response by the cavity pressure change. It was confirmed that the flashing at the gate area occurred in the filling stage by the pressure increase due to growth of the melt flow length. The sensor output was correlated with the cavity pressure sensor output.