Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

An experimental study of micromilling parameters to manufacture microchannels on a PMMA substrate

  • ORIGINAL ARTICLE
  • Published:
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Rapidly prototyping a polymer microfluidic device is a growing interest in the application fields of the disease detection, drug synthesis, and the environmental monitoring because of the benefits of the miniaturized platforms. Micromilling is one of the micromachining methods and it has been commonly used to manufacture polymer microfluidic devices. The advantages of using micromilling for polymer microfluidic devices include faster fabrication process, lower cost, easier user interface, and being capable of fabricating complicated structures, which make micromilling a perfect candidate in rapid prototyping polymer microfluidic devices for research idea testing and validation. This aim of this study is to understand the influence of each micromilling parameter to the surface quality, followed by the factor analysis to determine the optimal cutting conditions. The parameters included spindle speed, feed rate, depth of cut, and the selection of coolant (compressed air/oil coolant), and the milled surface quality was measured by a stylus profilemeter. Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is the mainstream substrate material in the microfluidics due to its excellent optical property and popularity and is used as the target substrate. The experiment results showed that using the compressed air as a coolant can deliver a better surface quality than the oil coolant, and the smallest roughness achieved was 0.13 μm with the spindle speed of 20,000 rpm, feed rate of 300 mm/min, and the depth of cut of 10 μm. Factor analysis revealed that the depth of cut has the largest impact while the spindle speed has the minimized impact to the surface quality of a micromilled PMMA substrate. To further confirm the optimal cutting conditions, another 12 reservoirs were micromilled with the optimal cutting conditions and the average roughness is 0.17 μm with a stand deviation of 0.08 μm.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Terry SC, Jerman JH, Angell JB (1979) A gas chromatographic air analyzer fabricated on a silicon wafer. IEEE Trans Electron Devices 26:1880–1886

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Yager P, Edwards T, Fu E, Helton K, Nelson K, Tam M, Weigl BH (2006) Microfluidic diagnostic technologies for global public health. Nature 442:412–418

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Whitesides GM (2006) The origins and future of microfluidics. Nature 442:68–373

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Roberson BH, Nicholson KA (2005) New microbiology tools for public health and their implications. Annu Rev Public Health 26:281–302

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Dornfeld D, Min S, Takeuchi Y (2006) Recent advances in mechanical micromachining. CIRP Ann Manuf Technol 55:745–768

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Xu BY, Yan XN, Zhang JD, Xu JJ, Chen HY (2012) Glass etching to bridge micro- and nanofluidics. Lab Chip 12:381

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Park DS, Chen PC, You BH, Kim N, Park T, Lee TY, Datta P, Desta Y, Soper SA, Nikitopoulos DE, Murphy MC (2010) Titer-plate formatted continuous flow thermal reactors for highthroughput applications: fabrication and test. J Micromech Microeng 20:055003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Chen PC, Park DS, You BH, Kim N, Park T, Soper SA, Nikitopoulos DE, Murphy MC (2010) Titer-plate formatted continuous flow thermal reactors: design and performance of a nanoliter reactor. Sensors Actuators B 149:291–300

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Kim JA, Lee JY, Seong S, Cha SH, Lee SH, Kim JJ, Park TH (2006) Fabrication and characterization of a PDMS-glass hybrid continuous flow PCR chip. Biochem Eng J 29:91–97

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Soper SA, Ford SM, Qi S, McCarley RL, Kelly K, Murphy MC (2000) Polymeric microelectromechanical systems. Anal Chem 72:643A–651A

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Mecomber JS, Hurd D, Limbach PA (2005) Enhanced machining of micron-scale features in microchip molding masters by CNC milling. Int J Mach Tools Manuf 45:1542–1550

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Sooraj VS, Jose M (2011) An experimental investigation on the machining characteristics of microscale end milling. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 56:951–958

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Mecomber JS, Stalcup AM, Hurd D, Halsall HB, Heineman WR, Seliskar CJ, Wehmeyer KR, Limbach PA (2006) Analytical performance of polymer-based microfluidic devices fabricated by computer numerical controlled machining. Anal Chem 78:936–941

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Becker H, Heim U (2000) Hot embossing as a method for the fabrication of polymer high aspect ratio structures. Sensors Actuators A 83:30–135

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Becker H, Gartner C (2001) Polymer based micro-reactors. Rev Mol Biotechnol 82:89–99

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Hupert ML, Guy WJ, Llopis SD, Shadpour H, Rani S, Nikitopoulos DE, Soper SA (2007) Evaluation of micromilled metal mold masters for the replication of microchip electrophoresis devices. Microfluid Nanofluid 3:1–11

    Google Scholar 

  17. Vazquez E, Rodriguez CA, Elias-Zuniga A, Ciurana J (2010) An experimental analysis of process parameters to manufacture metallic micro-channels by micro-milling. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 51:945–955

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Zhang JZ, Chen JC, Kirby ED (2007) Surface roughness optimization in an end-milling operation using the Taguchi design method. J Mater Process Technol 184:233–239

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Ko JS, Yoon HC, Yang H, Pyo HB, Chung KH, Kim SJ, Kim YT (2003) A polymer-based microfluidic device for immunosensing biochips. Lab Chip 3:106–113

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Wei CW, Cheng JY, Huang CT, Yen MH, Young TH (2005) Using a microfluidic device for 1 μl DNA microarray hybridization in 500 S. Nucleic Acids Res 33(8):e78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Spyro Plastics Ltd. (2005) http://www.spyroplastics.com/. Accessed 4 Nov 2013

  22. Rahman M, Senthil Kumar A, Salam MU (2002) Experimental evaluation on the effect of minimal quantities of lubricant in milling. Int J Mach Tools Manuf 42:539–547

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Li KM, Lin CP (2012) Study on minimum quantity lubrication in micro-grinding. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 62:99–105

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan

    Pin-Chuan Chen, Chang-Wei Pan & Wei-Chen Lee

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei City, Taiwan

    Kuan-Ming Li

Authors
  1. Pin-Chuan Chen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Chang-Wei Pan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wei-Chen Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Kuan-Ming Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pin-Chuan Chen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Chen, PC., Pan, CW., Lee, WC. et al. An experimental study of micromilling parameters to manufacture microchannels on a PMMA substrate. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 71, 1623–1630 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-013-5555-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-013-5555-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation