Report on design rules of μ-tools for standard insert: Final. COTECH EU FP7 Integrated Project (Grant Agreement no.: CP-IP 214491-2)

Tooling is one of the critical stages of the process chain for polymer micro products manufacture and in particular for the COTECH process chain. Therefore, within the scope of SP2 “Tooling”, the WP 2.2 “New tool-making solutions for μ-IM and HE” is designed to investigate, develop and standardize tool-making procedures for micro-moulds and inserts manufacture.

The innovative approach promoted by COTECH is the use of novel hybrid processes for micro tooling. This approach has been demonstrated to be able to provide optimal performance and enable the manufacture of micro-tools rapidly and cost-effectively, especially for micro injection moulding. This particular deliverable has the objective to present the design rules for high performance μ-tools and inserts manufacture based on the new standard manufacturing process chains established during the WP 2.2 work.

In particular, the achievable features, surfaces and accuracies that can be obtained by state-of-the-art micro machining are presented.