High-Precision Micro-Machining of Glass for Mass-Personalization and Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Of
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High-precision micro-machining of glass for mass-personalization Lucas Abia Hof A Thesis In the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Mechanical Engineering) at Concordia University Montreal, Québec, Canada June 2018 © Lucas Abia Hof, 2018 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Graduate Studies This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Lucas Abia Hof Entitled: High-precision micro-machining of glass for mass-personalization and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Mechanical Engineering) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: ______________________________________ Chair Dr. K. Schmitt ______________________________________ External Examiner Dr. P. Koshy ______________________________________ External to Program Dr. M. Nokken ______________________________________ Examiner Dr. C. Moreau ______________________________________ Examiner Dr. R. Sedaghati ______________________________________ Thesis Supervisor Dr. R. Wüthrich Approved by: ___________________________________________________ Dr. A. Dolatabadi, Graduate Program Director August 14, 2018 __________________________________________________ Dr. A. Asif, Dean Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science Abstract High-precision micro-machining of glass for mass- personalization Lucas Abia Hof, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2018 With the fourth industrial revolution manufacturing industry faces new challenges. Small batches of personalized parts, where the geometry changes per part, must be produced in an economically viable manner. In such cases of mass personalization new manufacturing technologies are required which can keep manufacturing overhead related to change of part geometries low. These processes need to address the issues of extensive calibration and tooling costs, must be able to handle complex parts and reduce production steps. According to recent studies hybrid technologies, including electrochemical technologies, are promising to address these manufacturing challenges. At the same time, glass has fascinated and attracted much interest from both the academic and industrial world, mainly because it is optically and radio frequency transparent, chemically inert, environmentally friendly and it has excellent mechanical and thermal properties, allowing tailoring of new and dedicated applications. However, glass is a hard to machine material, due to its iii hardness and brittleness. Machining smooth, high-aspect ratio structures is still challenging due to long machining times, high machining costs and poor surface quality. Hybrid methods like Spark Assisted Chemical Engraving (SACE) perform well to address these issues. Nevertheless, SACE cannot be deployed for high-precision glass mass-personalization by industry and academia, due to 1) lack of process models for glass cutting and milling, relating SACE input parameters to a desired output, 2) extensive calibration needed for tool-workpiece alignment and tool run-out elimination, 3) part specific tooling required for proper clamping of the glass workpiece to attain high precision. In this study, SACE technology was progressively developed from a mass-fabrication technology towards a process for mass-personalization of high-precision glass parts by addressing these issues. Key was the development of 1) an (empirically validated) model for SACE cutting and milling process operations allowing direct relation of the machining input to the desired machining outcome, enabling a dramatical increase of automation across the manufacturing process workflow from desired design to establishing of machinable code containing all necessary manufacturing execution information, 2) in-situ fabrication of the needed tooling and 3) the use of low-cost rapid prototyping, eliminating high indirect machining costs and long lead times. To show the viability of this approach two novel applications in the microtechnology field were proposed and developed using glass as substrate material and SACE technology for rapid prototyping: a) fabrication of glass imprint templates for microfabricating devices by hot embossing and b) manufacturing of glass dies for micro-forming of metal micro parts. iv Acknowledgements Traveller, there is no path – The path is made by walking. - Antonio Machado Before starting this exciting journey of experimenting, observing, analyzing, modeling, validating, machining, coffee/beer drinking, lunching, networking, failing, waiting, discovering, discussing, developing, debugging, inventing, writing, publishing, presenting and much more, I could have never imagined to even have started it all. Having gained ten years of industrial, teaching and entrepreneurial experience in The Netherlands after finishing successfully my master’s degree in mechanical engineering (werktuigbouwkunde) it was the one year of research experience at the Bleuler lab - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - that made me decide to pursue an academic career. Ten years and one email later, I was welcomed in the multidisciplinary research group of my supervisor Dr. Rolf Wüthrich. Rolf, I would like to express my deepest and warmest appreciation of your never-ending support and friendship during this PhD research adventure. Without your support, academic freedom and responsibilities you have given me, I would have never been the researcher I am now. Merci énormément et vous m’avez appris tout les outils necessaire pour poursuivre ma carrière dans la recherche! I am looking forward to continue working together on future research projects. I am grateful to Dr. Moreau, Dr. Dolatabadi, Dr. Sharifi and Dr. Ben Ettouil for the support and permission to use their microscopy facilities. Many thanks to D. Juras, R. Oliver, G. Huard and the EDML team for their technical support and use of their facilities. I am thankful to the ISO team and the MIAE administrative staff for the support on all non-research related, administrative issues. v I would like to thank all our industrial collaborators, it was a highly rewarding experience to work on your industrial challenges besides my thesis work. In particularly, I would like to acknowledge the teams of Passive Action, AxisPrototypes and Festo Didactic. This work was financially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). I would like to thank the Ministère de l’Education, de l’Enseignement supérieur, et de la Recherche (MEESR), for the bourse d’excellence pour étudiants étrangers, and Concordia University for the Frederick Lowy Scholars Fellowship, the Merit Scholarship and the Public Scholar bursary. I would like to acknowledge Posalux SA, Dr. G. Cusanelli, Dr. C. Goyer, M. Nadalin and P. Thibaut for the fruitful discussions, great collaboration and the use of the Microfor SACE machine. I would like to thank Micronit Microfluidics BV and Fraunhofer ILT for the fruitful discussions about the various micromachining processes’ specifications. Many thanks to all my former and current colleagues at the Electrochemical Green Engineering Group: Andrew, Jana, Sohel, Frederic, Vahid, Zahra, Pantea, and Panteah, I have enjoyed working with you all. Special thanks to Deependra and Michel for all your support, nice discussions and friendship, it has been a privilege and fun working with you. Maniya and Navid, thank you for your friendship, support and the beautiful moments we have shared besides all the lab work. I would like to thank my friends in The Netherlands for their encouragements. Thanks to my parents, Gerhard and Gené, my brother, David, and my sister, Elsbeth, for always been there for me and your unconditional love and friendship. Finally, my warmest thanks go to my loving wife, Gertie. Your unlimited support, endless love and joy helped me throughout all difficult moments and encouraged me to pursuit my dreams. Without you I would have never been able to start and to finish this adventure. I cannot express how much I love you. I dedicate this work to you! vi Dedication Dedicated to my loving wife, Gertie, my son, Émile and daughter, Annabelle …zonder jullie liefde, vrolijkheid en aanmoedigingen zou deze dissertatie nooit tot stand gekomen zijn… Dedicated to my loving parents vii Contribution of authors 1 Chapter 2 Micro-Hole Drilling on Glass Substrates—A Review Lucas A. Hof 1 and Jana Abou Ziki 2 1 Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, QC H3G 1M8, Canada 2 Bharti School of Engineering, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON P3E 2C6, Canada This review article has been published in Micromachines 8, 2017, 53, Special Edition: Glass Micromachining. L.A.H. conceived the review article, constructed the graphs, wrote the paper and oversaw the article structure. J.A.Z. contributed in writing the paper and overseeing the article structure. Chapter 6 Glass imprint templates by spark assisted chemical engraving for microfabrication by hot embossing Lucas A. Hof1, Shane Guo2, Minseok Seo2, Rolf Wüthrich1,3, Jesse Greener2,4 1 Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, QC H3G 1M8, Canada 2 FlowJEM Inc., 80 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3H6, Canada 3 Posalux SA, 18, Fritz Oppliger, CH-2504 Biel/Bienne, Switzerland 4 Département de Chimie, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada This article is