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Production and analysis of injection molded micro‐optic components
Author(s) -
McFarland Andrew W.,
Colton Jonathan S.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.20051
Subject(s) - materials science , curvature , finite element method , optics , radius of curvature , extrusion , radius , polystyrene , birefringence , polycarbonate , composite material , structural engineering , polymer , physics , computer science , engineering , geometry , mean curvature flow , mean curvature , mathematics , computer security
Plastic micro‐optic components (smaller than 1 mm in overall dimension, with lenses on the order of 50 microns in radius) will be very useful in future digital imaging and MEMS technologies. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) predicted the influence of different processing parameters upon the final shape of micro‐optic parts made from polystyrene, polycarbonate, and polymethylmethacrylate. Small‐scale phenomena such as surface tension and mold‐melt slip velocity were included in the models. The simulations were compared to physical parts, through birefringence and interferometry techniques, which permitted assessment of the computer modeling. The predicted radius of curvature trends match the measured trends, and the maximum difference between the predicted and corresponding measured radius of curvature was roughly 3.4%. The average difference between simulation and experiment for astigmatism and comatic aberration was less than 25%. Symmetry assumptions were tested and validated in more than 85% of the measured cases. Polym. Eng. Sci. 44:564–579, 2004. © 2004 Society of Plastics Engineers.