OPTICAL MOULDING | INNOVATION
Optical moulding offers a bright future for injection moulders. Machinery manufacturers and materials producers are developing and adapting products to meet growing market demands, writes Mark Holmes
Meeting the demands of complex optical parts
Enhanced optics are proving invaluable in the development of new products in a wide variety of end-use applications, including automotive, medical, imaging and communications. The benefits that these sophisticated optical devices can provide are only possible through precision production techniques. Injection moulding is ideally positioned to provide these manufacturing solutions and new systems are being developed by machinery suppliers to meet this need. Arburg reports that it is currently receiving enquiries in the field of optics from practically every industry, particularly in connection with medical technology and injection compression moulding applications. “For optical products, the processing of liquid silicone rubbers (LSR) is particularly interesting because this flexible material is charac- terised by heat resistance, low-temperature flexibility and transparency,” says Rolf-Uwe Müller, Applications Engineering Consulting Service. “The automotive industry, which is a driver for many inno-
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vative technologies, is also moving optical injection moulding forward with items such as lighting elements with switches and frames for interior lighting, overmoulded in a two-component process. In addition, of course, optical sensors are important when it comes to autonomous driving.” Müller highlights a number of current trends in optical moulding. “On the one hand, there is a trend away from glass and towards glass substitute materials, for example, shatterproof and transpar- ent plastic lenses based on cyclic polyolefins such as COC and COP,” he says. “On the other hand, quartz glass itself can now be processed by powder injection moulding. Quartz glass is more scratch-resistant than plastic and has a low thermal expansion. This is required for producing photo- optical circuits with faster data transmission rates for future computers, for example.” He says the production of imaging optics is a demanding task. “Regardless of current trends, process optimisation is and will therefore remain a
Main image: SABIC’s range of super high-flow Lexan PC resins for automotive lighting bezels enables the industry to create complex geometries and integrate more features with ease of manufacturing
July/August 2021 | INJECTION WORLD 25
IMAGE: SABIC
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