Micro machining of soft polymer material applying cryogenic cooling

Abstract

The cutting process applying cryogenic cooling is discussed for machining micro grooves on soft polymer materials. In this paper, the freezing milling method using liquid nitrogen is applied for the micro grooving of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). It is difficult to machine elastic materials such as PDMS because of their low toughness. However, the elastic properties of soft polymer materials change at temperatures below the glass transition temperature when soft polymer materials change from being elastic to hard. The result of a cutting test shows that micro grooves can be shaped in PDMS by the proposed freezing method, and good machining accuracy is attained.