Micro-forming

MICROMANUFACURING

Micro-Tribology

Friction coefficient in micro-

forming is great than that in
macro-forming.
With the increasing of
lubrication the friction force
decreases, but the
decreasing in micro forming
is significant higher than that
in macro forming.
Friction coefficient decreases
when the contact pressure
increases. (with lubricant)
MICROMANUFACURING

Micro-Tribology
The influence of increase in friction coefficient when
working in the micro-size domain brings about challenges
for the
– handling and ejection of the bulk formed micro-components.
– it is evident that, with the increase in friction due to open
lubricant pockets for the micro-size domain,
friction is a key challenge to be overcome in micro-bulk forming
(a) 3D simulation of pre-
form for a micro-axle.

(b) Photograph of the

formed component where
unwanted reverse forming
has occurred during
ejection from the forming
die.
MICROMANUFACURING

Micro-Tribology
Preform for a component to be manufactured by micro-bulk
forming.
– In this case the lower pinextrusion, with a diameter of about
0.5 mm, must be able to withstand the total friction force
during ejection.
– If the friction force is greater than the yield strength of the
component the pin will collapse and reverse forming will
occur.
– The problem was resolved by a reduction of the press load,
change of lubricant and polishing of the forming die.
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
The use of laser radiation as the heat source enables
– short heating times, due to the associated high energy
density.
In addition, there are other advantages such as
– contactless heating, good focusability and good controllability
– lasers are becoming a promising alternative to existing
technologies such as
induction or conductive heating
By using a laser as the heat source
– the induced energy and the resulting temperatures can be
easily controlled by laser power
– heating of selected areas is possible by forming the laser
beam
– the high energy density of the radiation and the direct
absorption enable short cycle times
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
Hence, a laser is a promising tool to achieve the potential
of micro-forming at elevated temperatures

– The laser radiation is first collimated and then reflected on a

dichroic mirror through a focal lens towards the sheet metal
surface.
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
By means of an additional camera, which is arranged
coaxially with the optical path,
the position of the laser radiation can be displayed on a
monitor
this enables an easy adjustment of the tool to the optical
system and the possibility of process monitoring
knowledge of the process temperatures arising are important
for reproducible and accurate process results
additional sensors can be used such as thermocouples or
pyrometers to detect these temperatures
the forming tool also has to be adapted in such a way that
– the radiation can be guided onto the workpiece or the punch,
depending on the workpiece material.
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
– for stamping operations the radiation can be easily guided
through the tool matrix, no additional elements are necessary
Other forming processes require ‘tool windows’
– these can be made of sapphire or fused silica
these are hard enough for the occurring process forces and,
transparent for the laser radiation
– through a breakout in the tool frame, the laser radiation is
transmitted through the sapphire/ glass onto the workpiece or
the punch
All devices – the laser and the press – are controlled by
software which controls the laser,
– depending on the position of the punch relative to the tool
and the required temperature, and switches it off after a
defined distance or time has been reached
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
In order to obtain short heating times and to maintain a
constant temperature
– a temperature controller can be used
– the controller compares the signal of a thermal sensor with
the demanded temperature and determines an according
value for the laser system
Example Processes
Stamping
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming

– Gearwheels stamped without (left) and with (right) laser

assistance
The cold-formed part has significant defects
– Many teeth are roughly removed, rather than smoothly
sheared
– The burr and the large fracture zones are indicators of bad
quality
– The warm-formed gearwheel has nearly no burr and fracture
zones, but has a high shearing ratio.
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
Embossing
– Conventional technologies for the manufacturing of micro-
structured components with geometries below 100 µm are
injection molding and hot embossing
– Both technologies are mainly limited to polymer materials
and require long cycle times due to different temperatures
during forming and mold release.
These drawbacks can be eliminated by laser-assisted hot
embossing,
– where high energy density laser radiation is used for a
selective and fast heating of the tool and the workpiece.
– using controlled irradiation of the tool surface, tool
temperatures of more than 500oC can be achieved within
seconds.
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
– At these temperatures even glass and metals can be
structured with this technology
– In comparison to other heating technologies such as
induction heating,
laser-assisted embossing enables the use of tool materials with
low thermal and electrical conductivity such as ceramics.

– for transparent workpiece materials such as glass or

polymers, the laser radiation heats the structured die which,
after achieving the required temperature, is then pressed
onto the workpiece and heats it via heat conduction
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
– In the case of non-transparent workpiece materials such as
metals,
the radiation is directly absorbed within the workpiece.
the cold die then penetrates into the heated metal workpiece
– With this technology micro-structures from 200 nm to several
tens of micrometers can be created at cycle times of below
one minute
Procedure
The workpiece is heated to the forming temperature,
– which is between the glass-transition temperature and the
melting point
– the tool then applies pressure on, and penetrates into, the
workpiece
During the holding time,
– the material yields to the punch structure
 MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
The de-embossing phase is the most critical during the
process:
– the structures are often destroyed in this phase due to
tearing or overstretching.
– since only the structured face side is heated,
the cooling phase is shorter in comparison to that for
conventional technologies
The advantages of laser-assisted hot embossing can be
summarized as follows:
1. Tooling materials are independent of thermal or electrical
conductivity;
2. Short heating times due to high energy density of laser
radiation;
3. Short cooling times by heating the near-surface area only;
 MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
4. Accurate measurement of the embossing temperature;
5. Selective heating of single areas of the component.

Bonding of Plastic with Metal and Ceramic – LIFTEC

‘laser-induced fusion technology
– challenge for many manufacturers is
the ongoing trend regarding an increased level of integration in
many technical products and
the increased use of plastics as construction material
– regarding the connection of dissimilar materials, such as
plastics with metals
until now the connection of these materials has been performed
by gluing, screwed fastening or the so-called mold-in technique
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
LIFTECR – is a newly developed process
– It is based on the theory that every thermoplastic being
transparent or at least translucent in the unpigmented state
– Based on this fact, a metal or ceramic component or a part of
it is heated with laser radiation through the plastic part
– The component is pressed onto the plastic part and heats
this by heat conduction
– After reaching sufficient plasticity the component penetrates
into the plastic part
Advantages of the technique are:
1. Short cycle times;
2. High mechanical strength;
3. Non-loosening connection, free from backlash;
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
4. Low requirements regarding tolerances andpositioning
accuracy;
5. No pre- or post-processing necessary;
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
When plastics are used that are not transparent for the
laser radiation,
– the process can be adapted in the way that the radiation
does not transmit through the plastic part, but is guided
laterally to the component,
MICROMANUFACURING

Laser-Assisted Micro-Forming
Sources of size-effects
• The manufacture of micro formed metal parts always deals with
size effects. These size effects make the downscaling of macro
processes even more difficult, since the production parameters
cannot simply be changed according to the rules of similarity.
The sources of the size effects can be divided into physical and
structural sources.
• Physical sources
– Pure volume size effects:
• An elemental source of size effects is the pure volume source (PVS). The PVS
occurs due to the fact that a decreasing volume of the part decreases the
number of micro structural features within this part.
• The material behaviour changes due to a reduced number of defects or
number of grains. This can lead to a change in the failure probability
distribution for a specific lot of parts. At very small parts, having dimensions in
the range of micrometer, dislocation effects can occur. If the dimension of the
part is smaller than the dimension of the Frank-Read-source, the plastic
behaviour of the material changes.
– Surface to volume size effect
• The surface to volume source (SVS) is relevant for all effects which are
dominated by surface effects. When the part size decreases, the ratio S/V
increases, which makes the surface effects more important. In processes like
heating/cooling the SVS plays a great role.
 • The occurrence of size effects due to the SVS depends, whether the
whole or only a fraction of the surface participates in the process.
– Forces relation size effect:
• Besides the processing force there are more different forces that act
on a part in processes. They are: Van-der-Waals-force, Surface
tension, Gravitation.
• These forces are very small and can be neglected in conventional
forming of macro parts. But for the micro forming these forces must
be taken into account, because they are relatively big regarding to the
process forces. The relationship between these forces and process
force or between two of these forces can lead to size effects.
• Structural sources
– Grain size to thickness size effect:
• The grain size of metallic materials is dependent on the material
properties and determined by the casting condition, the thermal,
mechanical and thermo-mechanical treatments. It is impossible to
generate each material with each grain size, thus the grain size cannot
be scaled down like the part dimension, for example like the
thickness.
 – Surface structure scalability size effect:
• Like the grain size of the material the surface structure is the result of the
history of the part. It is influenced by cutting processes and surface
roughening, flattering or intended structuring during forming processes. The
result of these treatments is also influenced by the grain size, as it has an
influence on the elementary processes like grain tilting in forming or elastic
springback in cutting operations. In principle, the surface roughness is
independent on the part size. It is often not possible to reduce the surface
roughness like the part dimension, due to that the surface structure scalability
(SSS) can be the source of size effects. The micro contact remains unchanged,
while the macro contact is changed due to miniaturisation. Especially in
lubrication this leads to a size dependent friction behaviour.
• Micro sheet metal forming
– Micro deep drawing
• Saotome did first investigations in micro deep drawing, where limit draw ratios
(LDR) were experimentally detected for thin steel sheets of 0.1mm in
thickness. It was furthermore shown that the relative punch diameter (punch
diameter related to the sheet thickness) has a significant influence on the LDR:
In the range of l0–100 for the relative punch diameter, the LDR decreases (2.2–
2.0) with increasing relative punch diameter. For a relative punch diameter of
10, bending is the dominant forming mechanism since the effect of blank
holder pressure on drawability has been found to be minimal. Further
investigations in micro deep drawing are planned by Erhardt et al.. He
proposed a tool concept for laser supported local part heating in micro deep
drawing processes of 0.1mm thick sheets, as shown in Fig. 1
Fig. 1: Tool-concept for laser supported part heating in micro deep drawing
 • A laser beam is applied to the flange area through a draw ring of
diamond or sapphire. The laser beam is supposed to heat the
flange area of the blank, where high strains occur, and it is thus
expected to increase the formability of the blank. Own
investigations in micro deep drawing were carried out to
investigate the limit drawing ratio in micro forming. One of the
used material is 1.0330, a mild steel. The limit drawing ratio of
1.0330 in macro forming can reach 2.2.
• Incremental micro sheet metal forming
– Incremental micro sheet metal forming in terms of
hammering was investigated by Saotome. The metal sheet
of 10 mm in thickness was hammered by a punch of 10
mm in diameter in several layers, as it is shown in Fig. 2.
The sheet is guided under the punch by a 3D-CNC
positioning machine with servo motors in an accuracy of
0.2 mm. The working process was online observed in a
SEM field. Similar investigations are done by Tanaka with a
rotational symmetric part in.
Fig.2: Incremental sheet metal forming by hammering
 • Laser micro forming
– Microbending:
• Among the mechanical micro forming, it is also possible to form micro
parts by laser beam technology. With the short-pulse excimer laser
radiation thermally induced stresses can be applied to extremely thin
surface layers. The released forces cause a forming in the radiated
area of the workpiece, which is bent towards the laser beam by every
laser pulse. The resulting bend angles depend on numerous
processing and material parameters. The most important factors are
the energy density, the number of laser pulses, the material thickness
and the material properties. Fig. 3 shows two 50 mm thin copper foils
and wire, which are bent by pulsed laser radiation to an angled
geometry and to a sinus shape.

Fig.3:
• Non-thermal laser micro forming:
– Additionally to the thermal mechanisms also a non-thermal
mechanism can be used. Non-thermal laser forming is a fairly new
process, which uses the optical low-threshold surface breakdown and
results in creation of a shock wave. The laser induced shock wave can
in principle be used for all micro sheet metal forming processes. Own
investigations were done in non-thermal laser stretch-forming, see Fig.
4. The sheet metal is wet by a water film of several millimeters in
height in order to generate a confined plasma and then placed on a
circular die and clamped by a blank holder. In a next step one short
laser pulse hits the sheet metal and causes ablation at the surface of
the sheet. The vaporized metal gets ionized by the laser radiation,
which than results in a plasma formation. If enough energy is applied
on the plasma, a chain reaction of the plasma formation will cause a
shock wave, which then stretch-forms the specimen. The experiments
resulted in uniform shaped parts with dome heights of 250 mm at a
diameter of 1.4 mm, see Fig. 5. This relates to an aspect ratio of 0.18,
whereby mechanical experiments of stretch forming with a sheet
thickness of 1mm resulted in maximum aspects ratios of 0.24. This
shows that the laser micro stretch forming reaches comparable high
forming degrees. Important parameters are the power density, the
material, the coating, the thickness of the material and the diameter
of the drawing die.
Fig. 4: Schematical process of non-thermal laser stretch-forming

Fig. 5: Laser stretch-formed micro part

• Micro massive forming
– Micro massive forming has yet wide applications as the
raw part can easily be produced by wire drawing down to
diameters of several ten microns and cutting the wire into
small cylinders. Cold headed parts can be formed in same
dimensions and with special machine equipment even
down to wires of 0.3mm in diameter, see Fig. 6

Fig. 6: Cold headed micro parts