Measurement of Effective Cure Shrinkage of Epoxy Molding Compound and Induced In-line Warpage during Molding Process

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Files

Kim_umd_0117E_23712.pdf (5.1 MB)
(RESTRICTED ACCESS)
No. of downloads:

Publication or External Link

Date

2023

Citation

Abstract

Cure shrinkage accumulated only after the gel point is known as effective cure shrinkage (ECS), which produces residual stresses inside molded components. The ECS of an epoxy-based molding compound (EMC) is measured by an embedded fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor. Under a typical molding condition, a high mold pressure inherently produces large friction between EMC and mold inner surfaces, which hinders EMC from contracting freely during curing. A two-stage curing process is developed to cope with the problem. In the first stage, an FBG sensor is embedded in EMC by a molding process, and the FBG-EMC assembly is separated from the mold at room temperature. The molded specimen is heated to a cure temperature rapidly in the second stage using a constraint-free curing fixture. The ECS of an EMC with a filler content of 88 wt% is measured by the proposed method, and its value is 0.077%. The measured ECS can be used to predict the warpage caused by molding processes. The validity of the prediction can be verified only by measuring the warpage during molding. A point-based measurement technique utilizing uniquely-generated multiple beams and binarization-based beam tracing method is developed to cope with the challenges associated with the warpage measurement during molding. The proposed method is implemented successfully to measure the warpage of a bimaterial disk that consists of aluminum and EMC as a function of time during molding process. Measurements are repeated to establish the measurement accuracy of the proposed method.

Notes

Rights