Investigation of deviation in width of embossed micro-structure by hot embossing

Abstract

Abstract In today’s scenario every manufacturing industry tries to achieve maximum productivity and profit. Manufacturing large number of components within less time helps in increasing the productivity and profit. Hot Embossing is a manufacturing process chiefly used for development of micro-structures on polymer. The parameters considered in this study are the embossing temperature, applied load, embossing time, and de-embossing temperature. The optimization has been carried out with help of Taguchi method for reduction of deviation in width of embossed micro-structures. The Taguchi L9 orthogonal array has been used for collection of data and ANOVA has been performed to find out the percentage contribution of each process parameter of Hot Embossing. ANOVA result reveals that embossing temperature has major contribution of 45.92% as compared to other process parameters. After optimization the working values for different process parameters are embossing temperature = 115°C, applied load = 1.5 tonne, embossing time = 8 minute and de-embossing temperature = 40°C. At an optimum level deviation in width of embossed micro-structure from dimension of mold is only 1.72 μm which is less than the value obtained in each experimental run.