Effect of Atomic Level Interactions on Adhesion at interface in Insert Moulding
Hrushikesh Abhyankar, *D. Patrick Webb and David A. Hutt.
Loughborough University.
Loughborough, Leicestershire, UK. LE11 3TU.
*Corresponding author: D.P.Webb@lboro.ac.uk
Abstract
The Substrateless Packaging process was developed at
Loughborough University as an alternative method of
manufacturing electronics with an improved end-of-life
materials recovery profile. The process involves injection
moulding to overmould electronic components in
thermoplastic polymers. Initial prototype samples
manufactured in previous work exhibited undesirable small
gaps around the embedded components after solidification and
which were thought to be the result of adhesion problems
between the thermoplastic overmould and components. The
study reported here had the aims of determining quantitatively
what factors affect adhesion, and to identify which
thermoplastic polymers are most suitable for the process.
Following a literature survey, six engineering
thermoplastics, PC, PBT, PS, ABS, PA 6 and PMMA were
chosen for study as overmoulding materials, and tin as the
solid adherend. The literature survey also identified the
mechanisms contributing to adhesion at the metal-
thermoplastic interface in insert moulding as material
properties, interfacial forces between the materials, wetting at
the interface, temperature of the insert (consequently
temperature at the interface) and insert moulding parameters.
A methodology was designed to allow investigation of all
these factors, with Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) force-
distance measurements being used to measure room
temperature interfacial forces, high temperature contact angle
for wetting, and pull-out strength tests on overmoulded tin-
coated wire for overall system adhesion. Excellent
repeatability was seen in the measurements obtained with all
three experimental methods. Moldflow finite element
simulations of the insert moulding process were also
undertaken.
For the AFM measurements tin particles were adhered to
the probe with the aid of a Focused Ion Beam (FIB) apparatus.
PA and PMMA interatomic interactions with tin were found to
be noticeably stronger than the other polymers. From
consideration of the different possible contributions to the
measured forces, it was concluded that the trend of
interatomic interactions obtained is due to a combination of
electrostatic forces, capillary forces and dispersion forces
acting between the materials tested.
In the high temperature contact angle measurements it was
observed that the contact angles for all the materials producing
drops in equilibrium reduce monotonically with rise in
temperature at the interface. The work of adhesion was
calculated from the contact angles for PMMA using the
Young-Dupre equation and values of surface tension from the
literature. It was found that it does not increase monotonically
with temperature as might be expected from the contact
angles. The works of adhesion at 240°C for all the materials
were also calculated and it was found that the materials
ranking for expected adhesive strength changed significantly
from that expected from consideration of contact angle alone.
In the pull out tests, except for PC, the breaking loads for
the materials tested rise then fall with rise in temperature of
the insert. It was observed that peak breaking load for the
amorphous polymers ABS, PS and PMMA occurred for insert
temperature just below Tg of the polymer, and for semi-
crystalline polymers PA 6 and PBT it was just above Tg. The
ranking of materials by maximum pull out strength was found
to be consistent with the ranking by mechanical strength
(tensile strength at yield) of the thermoplastics.
The Moldflow simulations yielded the significant results
that the thermoplastic melt comes in contact with the insert at
relatively low pressure (less than 0.6 MPa), and that the
temperature of the melt near the insert drops to the
temperature of the insert almost instantaneously on contact.
Therefore it was concluded that the efficacy of holding
pressure on assisting wetting of the insert by the thermoplastic
melt may depend on the temperature of the insert interface.
The results in terms of material rankings from both the
material level tests (AFM force distance experiment and
wetting at high temperature) did not correspond to the
mechanical strength test results. It was therefore concluded
that the choice of material for thermoplastic overmould cannot
be made purely based on the material interactions at interface
between tin and thermoplastics in solid or melt phase. It was
also concluded that the observed variation in the pull-out
strengths with temperature of the insert maintained during
overmoulding, must be largely due to the thermo-mechanical
properties of the material at the interface.
Based on the results of the study, PC, PBT and PMMA
were recommended as being likely to give superior
performance to the ABS which was used in early trials of the
substrateless packaging process. Of these, from a process
economics point of view, PBT would be the most suitable.
.
Introduction
Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are currently used to
manufacture electronic circuits. PCBs are generally made up
of epoxy based resins with woven glass fiber reinforcements
[2]. This technology has been successfully implemented for
circuit manufacture for over the last four decades. However,
the inherent lack of recycle-ability of the woven glass fiber
and thermoset resin composite has created end-of-life disposal
problems. Environmental legislation, such as the European
Union’s (EU), Waste in Electronic and Electrical Equipment
(WEEE) and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)
Directives [3] has lead to manufacturers looking for more
environmentally friendly options to manufacture electronics.
Thermoplastics are readily recycle-able and hence are
being looked at as direct one-to-one replacements for the
thermoset-glass fibre PCBs. Thermoplastics are already used
in Moulded Interconnect Devices (MIDs) which are used for
complex 3D interconnection in niche applications [4]. While
there is little sign of more widespread acceptance of
thermoplastic materials in the industry as yet, several groups
have recently proposed overmoulding of electronics as a
viable “greener” alternative to conventional PCB technology
[1,5]. One process, which has been named “Occam”, uses
thermoset resins as the matrix to produce circuits in a build up
manner similar to embedded chip packaging techniques. [5].
As the process, uses thermoset resins the claimed
environmental benefit is reduction of energy use by avoiding
the soldering step, rather than an improved end of life disposal
profile.
A second environmentally friendly alternative to
conventional PCBs has been proposed at Loughborough
University. ‘Substrateless Packaging’ involves the use of
thermoplastics to overmould the individual electronic
components [1] and hold them in position relative to each
other. An interconnection pattern is then created by printing or
plating onto the moulding holding the components. The
assembly route thus reverses the normal order of surface
mount technology (SMT) assembly steps in that components
are assembled before the interconnection pattern is created.
The advantage of the process is that it enables the easy
separation of organic and inorganic matter for end-of-life
processes and recycling. A detailed description of the process,
advantages, and current state-of-art are described in the cited
reference [1].
In substrateless packaging intimate contact between the
overmoulded thermoplastic resin, and the legs of the
electronic components, is crucial for the integrity of the
electrical interconnection, as illustrated in Fig. 1. If small gaps
open up around the embedded components after solidification
these will either act as weak points in the electrical
interconnect pattern, or prevent electrical interconnect being
achieved at all. The question of what material-material
interactions, and process conditions, promote adhesion
between insert and overmould is therefore a crucial one to
address to enable production of high quality and reliable
circuits.
Thermoplastic Electronic component
Legs
Gaps
Fig. 1. Gaps observed in initial trials of the substrateless
packaging process
The process of insert moulding is at the heart of
substrateless packaging and has been around for more than
two decades. It consists of retaining an object inside an
injection moulding tool and injecting the melt such that it
solidifies around the object and creates a composite moulding.
However, there is little published literature on adhesion
between insert and moulding, and most of the information in
the public domain is empirical in nature [10]. Injection
moulding involves processing of polymers at temperatures
above their melting points i.e. in liquid state. The interactions
which would be expected to have an effect on adhesion
between tin and a thermoplastic overmould are the wetting
interaction of the thermoplastic in the melt at high temperature
with the tin surface, and the effect of cooling rate of the
polymer, which would be strongly affected by the presence of
the insert, on the polymer microstructure and residual stress
state.
The study which is reported here was undertaken to
determine quantitatively the importance of insert temperature,
and consequently wetting and cooling of the thermoplastic, on
the practical joint strength obtained by overmoulding tin
coated metal wire with the set thermoplastic resins identified
above. A major aim was to attempt to separate out the relative
contributions of surface-surface adhesive force interactions,
and the residual stress state of the moulding. To achieve this,
measurements of wetting of molten polymer on tin coupons
was also performed. The results of the two sets of experiments
are compared here and a model advanced to explain the
observations. Further work which would help to confirm the
model is then proposed.
Materials and Experimental Apparatus
A Dimension 3100 instrument from Veeco (Digital
Instruments) was used for this experiment. The AFM can be
operated in tapping and contact mode. Nanoscope 6.12rl was
the software interface (also provided by Veeco) that was used
to record the data.
Tin particles from Goodfellow (average size 45 micron
99.9 % pure) were used to functionalise the AFM cantilevers.
When observed under a scanning electron microscope, the size
of the tin particles was observed to vary from about 15 μm
upwards. Not all the particles were spherical. Based on usage
in the articles in the literature review of force- distance
measurements reported earlier, spherical tin particles of size
15 +/- 2 μm were chosen for this experiment. The polymer
samples used for this experiment were injection moulding
granules as received from the manufacturers. There was no
particular reason to pre-process the granules and doing so
would risk contamination e.g.: mould release agent coming in
contact with the sample surface. The granules were however
dried before the experiments in a fan oven. The time of drying
was as recommended by the manufacturers for injection
moulding processing. TESP probes from Veeco were also gauge adhesion forces between solid state particles. Fig. 2
used for this experiment. Table 1 gives the nominal properties shows a typical δ c vs Z curve
of the TESP probe cantilever that was functionalized. The
Dual beam focused ion beam (FIB) Microscope consists of a
high resolution field emission gun electron column and
gallium source focused ion beam column combined within the
same instrument. An FEI Nova 600 Nanolab dual beam FIB
FEG-SEM was used for this experiment.

TABLE 1: PROPERTIES OF THE TESP CANTILEVER USED

Thickness-
3.25-4.75 μm
range
(a) (b)
Fig 2 Typical force curve with labelling corresponding to tip-sample
Length-range 110-140 μm interaction points

A typical force-distance plot (δ c Vs Z position) is shown

Width-range 30-50 μm
in Fig. 2. The various regimes of the plot (Fig. 2(A))
correspond to the positions of the cantilever (Fig. 2(B)). The
f0(frequency) - blue line on the plot represents the extending plot, i.e. plot of
230-410 kHz
range measurements during the approach of the cantilever mounting
to the surface, and the red line represents the retracting plot.
k (spring
20-80 N/m At stage A the cantilever is approaching the surface and δ c is
constant) - range 0 (non contact regime). At a critical distance i.e. at stage B,
the cantilever jumps into contact with the surface due to the
Coating None interactions between the tip and the surface and the following
stage, C, is therefore referred to as the contact regime. It
0.01-0.025 Ohm-cm should be noted that the jump-to-contact feature is not always
Material seen. In stage C the cantilever mounting continues to the
Antimony (n)doped Si
surface and is stopped at a preset height. The mounting is then
retracted, stage D, during which the cantilever tip remains in
The inserts used for pull test were lengths of tinned copper contact with the surface due to the adhesive forces. At a
wire from RS electronics. The diameter of the wire was certain point, E, the elastic force due to the flexure of the
1.63mm and the thickness of the tin coating was 0.6 µm. Pull cantilever is sufficient to overcome the adhesive forces
test samples were prepared using a vertical plunger type between the tip and the sample, and the tip separates from the
injection moulding machine. The details of the injection sample surface. The movement distance of the tip when it
moulding machine are given in Table 2. separates represents the pull off force. Using the spring
constant of the cantilever, the tip deflection can be converted
TABLE 1: PROPERTIES OF THE TESP CANTILEVER USED into force using Eqn. 1 and thus, the magnitude of the forces
Description Value of interaction between tip and sample can be mapped.

Injection Pressure 900 psi (6.2 MPa) F=−k δ c ……………………… [1]

Plunger Diameter 20mm
Also, the pull off force can be related to the force of
Injection stroke 100 mm adhesion between the tip and surface. According to Derjaguin
for the case of a spherical tip interacting with a flat surface,
Heating range upto 300°C the work of Adhesion (ώ ) is directly proportional to the pull
off force ( F pull off ) between the AFM cantilever tip (radius
Mould Clamping Unit Manual
Rtip) and sample surface (Eqn. 2).

AFM Force-distance −F pull off

Use of Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) to characterize ώ= ...................................... [2]
2 π Rtip
solid state particle adhesion has been well documented. In this
study, cantilever deflection (δ c ¿ curves would be generated to
 Thus, if the radius of the tip is kept constant i.e. if the 7. Finally, the gallium ion beam was used to cut the
same tip is used to test various samples, the extent of adhesion micromanipulator away from the particle to release
can be estimated by the magnitude of the pull off force ( the functionalized tip (Fig. 32).
F pull off ). The pull off measurements require that the material
of the tip surface and the substrate are representative of the
materials for which adhesion measurement is sought.
Changing the material on the tip side of the interacting pair is
referred to as “functionalising” the tip.
The primary aim of the AFM force-distance work reported
here was to establish an adhesion hierarchy between tin and
the selected thermoplastic polymers. According to Eqn. 1 the
adhesive force can be calculated using the product of the
spring constant (k ) of the cantilever and its deflection ( δ c ¿ .
However, if the same cantilever is used (with the same particle
on its tip and under similar ambient conditions) for all the tin-
thermoplastic pairs, then δ c measured for each tin- Fig.3 Vacuum chamber of the dual beam microscope
thermoplastic pair can be compared to establish relative
adhesive strengths. Hence for the purpose of this study δ c
readings were not converted into force readings using the
cantilever spring constant. Plots of δ c vs Z were gathered for
each thermoplastic-tin pair and used to derive bar charts
showing the relative adhesive strength.
There are many techniques used to functionalize the AFM
tip. Readers are advised to refer to review articles or guidance
notes form Veeco. The technique used normally depends upon
the type of application, materials to be used and
instrumentation available. An alternative technique of particle
attachment was adapted from work done by Sqalli et.al. This
technique used the dual beam SEM/FIB system with a
micromanipulator attachment. The stages in the attachment of
the particles were as follows: Fig 4 Sharpened tip of the micromanipulator
1. The AFM cantilever to be functionalised and a
selection of tin particles were spread on a gold plated
glass slide and placed in the vacuum chamber of the
dual beam microscope. (Fig. 27)
2. The tip of the micromanipulator was sharpened so
that the point of contact between the
micromanipulator and particle was minimised. It also
helped in detaching the particle from the
micromanipulator (Fig. 28).
3. After scanning the slide a particle was selected for
use (Fig. 29). The size of the particle was generally
limited to 15-20μm.
4. The micro-manipulator was manoeuvred towards the
particle and the particle was attached to the
micromanipulator by platinum deposition. Platinum
Fig 5 Size of the selected particle
was locally melted (in the vacuum chamber) with the
help of the electron beam (Fig. 30)
5. The micro-manipulator with the particle attached was
then manoeuvred towards the AFM cantilever,
touching the tip.( Fig. 31)
6. Platinum was deposited on the back of the cantilever
through to the particle. The process effectively
‘‘welded’’ the particle to the tip position.

Fig 6 Platinum deposition
Fig 7 Micromanipulator with particle attached moving towards the tip of the
probe
Fig 8 Micro-manipulator detachment
As described above, tin particles were FIB welded to the
TESP probes and used. Sensitivity calculations were done
and cantilever deflection (δc ) Vs Z plots were obtained. Fig. 9
shows a representative plot obtained using cantilever 1 with
PA 6. The plot represents two traces, the approach (extend-
blue line) and the pull off (retract- red line). The extend phase
starts from the right (high Z value) and moves left towards
zero while the retract phase starts at the left of the plot and
moves to the right. During the extend phase of the plot the
cantilever moved towards the sample. At a critical distance,
due to the forces of attraction between the tin and the sample,
it was expected to jump to contact. However in this case this
was not clearly observed as the magnitude of the cantilever
deflection may vary depending on the tip-sample interactions.
As the cantilever moved further towards the sample, the
cantilever deflection started to increase. This region, marked
“X” in the plot, corresponds to when the tip was in contact
with the surface, i.e.; the contact regime. At the end of the
extend phase, the cantilever started moving away from the
sample - this marks the start of the retract phase. On account
of adhesion forces acting between the materials attached to the
tip of the cantilever and the polymer sample, more elastic
force is required for the cantilever to jump out of contact. This
force is normally referred to as ‘pull off force’. Normally after
the cantilever jumps out of contact, the retract plot re-traces
the extend plot as seen here.
Overall, the traces showed behaviour that was consistent
with the expected curve shown earlier in Fig. 2. At the start of
each run, should the cantilever experience a long range
attractive (repulsive) force in the non-contact region i.e.
before the jump to contact, it will deflect downwards
(upwards) before making contact with the surface giving rise
to a curved rather than a straight line. In the results for the FIB
welded particle on TESP cantilever, a straight line was
obtained instead and demonstrated that, this effect can be
avoided by using a cantilever with a high spring constant.
Each polymer tested had a unique cantilever deflection
plot. The form of the curve was very similar except that the
degree of cantilever deflection varies. In particular, in the
contact regime (‘X’) the loading and unloading curves seldom
overlapIn fact in the case of ABS the difference was very
apparent. This may be because of the viscoelastic nature of the
materials [..]. The curves would be expected to have
overlapped exactly in the case of perfectly elastic materials.
However, in the case of viscoelastic materials the sample
undergoes some plastic deformation during loading and it
does not regain its shape during unloading. Most samples have
mixed behaviour and hence the curves seldom overlap. In
general the nature of the curves was still very similar to the
ones reported in literature.
The jump to contact feature during the extend phase of the
plot varies from polymer to polymer as it occurs when the
gradient of attractive forces exceeding the spring constant.
The majority of the samples showed very little jump to
contact, except ABS that showed a clear interaction. The
difference in δc between the point at which the cantilever
came free from the surface and the non contact level (straight
line) was used to define the pull off force for all plots
Table 2 summarise the results from all of the experiments.
It can be seen that the results were very consistent for the
same cantilever such that the results obtained from each
sample were within a range of the average of the three
readings obtained from each sample. In order to compare to be
able to compare the results, the cantilever deflections were
normalised to the value for PA 6. For all three cantilevers the
observed trend was almost the same except for cantilever 2
where ABS and PBT exchanged places. However the value
obtained for these polymers with all three cantilevers were
very close. It is clear that the cantilever deflections can be
robustly ranked in order to understand which polymers show
better surface-surface adhesion to tin. In general the order is
(strongest to weakest adhesion)
PC > PMMA > PBT > ABS > PS > PA 6
PC and PMMA were noticeably stronger than the
other polymers.
While adhesion at the overmoulding – insert surface
interface of a composite moulding depends on the interacting
materials, the practical joint strength can vary based on the
moulding history. In order to understand the effect of
solidification after injection moulding on the joint strength, it
is necessary to find a strength test sample configuration that
can be produced under conditions mimicking the actual
moulding conditions which would be experienced in the
substrateless packaging process. Hence, a pull test was
devised to fully comprehend the complexities involved in
substrateless manufacturing of electronics. The mechanical
strength test results were intended not only to yield
measurements of the magnitudes of the joint strengths
achievable in the insert overmoulded system, but also help to
establish trends with regards to adhesion and joint strength in
the hybrid. The results of the mechanical strength test were
also intended to allow assessment of the significance of
material-material interactions on the practical joint strength.

Fig. 5. of the sample for pull out test

Pull test samples as shown in Fig. 5 were created by

overmoulding tin coated copper wire of diameter 1.63 mm in
Fig. 9. Cantilever deflection Vs Z deflection for tin an injection moulding machine. To mimic the effect of heated
functionalised TESP probe and PA 6 inserts, the wire and mould were preheated in an oven to the
Cantilever 1
required temperatures. The cooling behaviour of the wire and
PS PBT PC ABS PMMA PA6 mould was calibrated, allowing the temperature of the wire at
the moment of injection to be closely controlled by controlling
9.30 11.20 19.90 10.40 18.10 7.90
Cantilever deflection
9.60 11.40 19.80 10.10 18.30 7.80 the time elapsed between removal from the oven and
(nm)
9.20 11.10 20.70 10.10 17.90 8.10 injection. Samples with insert temperatures 60°C, 80°C,
Avg. Cantilever
Deflection
9.37 11.23 20.13 10.20 18.10 7.93 100°C, 120°C and room temperature (21°C) were produced
Ratio 1.18 1.42 2.54 1.29 2.28 1.00 using all six thermoplastics in the study, injected at their
processing temperatures (PS: 220°C, PBT: 260°C, PC: 280°C,
Cantilever 2
ABS: 240°C, PMMA: 260°C, PA6: 260°C.)
PS PBT PC ABS PMMA PA6 After cooling, pull out tensile tests were performed on the
13.40 14.20 25.10 14.30 23.70 10.10
samples and the breaking shear force recorded. This was
Cantilever deflection
12.00 14.60 25.60 14.40 23.60 11.50 usually but not always the maximum load. However there
(nm)
13.10 14.20 25.30 14.80 23.10 11.10 was always a dip in load and the maximum before the dip was
Avg. Cantilever
Deflection
12.83 14.33 25.33 14.50 23.47 10.90 defined as the breaking force. Any load readings after this
Ratio 1.18 1.31 2.32 1.33 2.15 1.00 event were ignored. Fig. 6 shows a typical force-extension
plot.
Cantilever 3
In Fig. 7 the results of the pull tests are presented. Each
PS PBT PC ABS PMMA PA6 force value represents an average of 15 measurements. The
13.40 18.20 28.50 16.30 26.20 11.10 standard deviation was between 2-3% for all values, which is
Cantilever deflection
(nm)
12.30 18.60 28.10 16.10 26.90 11.50 smaller than the differences between most of them. It can be
11.70 19.20 28.30 15.80 26.50 11.10
seen that the breaking loads for each material varies with
Avg. Cantilever
Deflection
12.47 18.67 28.30 16.07 26.53 11.23 temperature, and that the values vary between materials. From
Ratio 1.11 1.66 2.52 1.43 2.36 1.00 the maximum loads for each material in Fig. 7 the joint
Pull Test strengths of the individual tin-thermoplastic pairs can be
ranked as follows:
 PC>PBT>PMMA>PS>ABS>PA6 testing used by other authors. Most reports are for lap shear
samples or peel test samples. Ramani et.al. performed a
tensile butt shear test. All these tests are typically used to
measure the joint strengths of adhesive joints. However, in
order to truly gauge the joint strength of an insert moulded
joint, it is important to account for the effect of shrinkage or
the lack of it on the final joint strength of the composite.
Discussion
As has been previously mentioned insert injection
moulding is a very complex process. The joint strength
Fig. 6. Typical plot of force (N) vs displacement (mm) for depends on many variables such as the material properties of
the pull out tensile tests. the insert and the overmould, processing parameters etc. In the
absence of any chemical interactions at the interface,
empirical data in the literature suggest that wetting and insert
temperature have a profound effect on the ultimate joint
strength. The design of experiment reported in this paper had
the aim of separating out the influences of wetting and
residual stress on the practical adhesion strength developed in
inert moulded joints.
For all the polymers investigated wetting increases
monotonically with rise in temperature, in agreement with the
literature. In general, better wetting of the adherend/insert by
the adhesive/overmould would be expected to correspond to
higher adhesion/joint strength. Thus increasing insert
temperature in the overmoulding experiments would be
expected to lead to a monotonic increase in joint strength.
However, wetting is clearly not determinative of joint strength
Fig. 7. Results of the pull out test for each material at varying insert as the material rankings from the wetting and pullout
temperatures. experiments are very different, as shown in Table 2.
This is also shown in the variation of pull out load with
Also, it is interesting to note the way in which joint temperature for each material (Fig 7). The maximum joint
strength varies with respect to insert temperature. Ramani strength rises and then starts falling with rise in insert
et.al. have reported a continuous rise in joint strength with rise temperature. This clearly suggests that although wetting may
in insert temperature. However, for the data in Fig. 7 with be playing some part in the integrity of the tin-thermoplastic
most materials, peak strength occurs for insert temperatures joint, the effect of moulding parameters has a much larger
near the glass transition temperature of the overmould influence on the joint strength. Yamaguchi et.al. investigated
material, as shown in table 1, followed by a fall in strength the effect of heat flow at the interface of an insert moulded
with increasing temperature. Thus, for the case of PC there is film and concluded that the presence of the film caused
no characteristic rise and fall pattern as the Tg of PC is 150°C. injected resin to adopt a higher crystalline content on
The maximum strength variation with temperature observed solidification, due to the slower cooling rate. It is proposed
for a single material was 42%, which occurred for PMMA that rise in insert temperature has exactly the same effect on
between room temperature and 80°C. the tin-thermoplastic system [11]. With hotter inserts the
Table 1. Peak load temperature in pull out tests and glass polymer in contact with the tin metal cools down more slowly,
transition temperatures hence has better crystallinity and higher shrinkage induced
Material PS PBT PC ABS PMMA PA6 stress acting radially outwards at the insert-thermoplastic
Peak load 80 60 >120 60 80 60 interface. The effect is more pronounced at insert temperatures
temperature above Tg.
°C
Conclusions
Glass 98 65 150 105 114 48 An investigation of the factors influencing the practical
transition joint strength achieved when tin coated electronic components
temperature are overmoulded for the substrateless packaging electronics
Tg °C assembly process has been carried out. Molten sessile drop
contact angle measurements of six different thermoplastics on
These results were unexpected and not in accordance with tin foil showed a universal trend to greater wetting with
the empirical data reported in the literature or by Ramani et.al. increase in temperature, in agreement with the literature. By
This may be because of the different methods of joint strength contrast, pull out measurements of tin wire overmoulded with
the same thermoplastics exhibited a rise and then fall in the injection moulding of plastics parts,” Proceedings
breaking load with increasing insert temperature, with the of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B:
peak occurring around the Tg of the thermoplastic. This is in Journal of Engineering Manufacture, vol. 221, no. 6,
contrast with the literature. A model has been proposed pp. 945-954, 2007.
whereby wetting and crystallisation induced residual stresses [9] M. Imachi, “Hot-melt adhesion and wettability of
are competing mechanisms influencing the practical adhesion polyethylene/metal in the vicinity of the metal melting
strengths of the insert moulded joints. Above Tg of the point,” Journal of Polymer Science: Polymer Letters
moulding material the crystallisation mechanism dominates Edition, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 129-133, 1988.
and therefore the observed joint strengths fall with increasing [10] M. Grujicic et al., “An overview of the polymer-to-
temperature. Further experiments to confirm or falsify the metal direct-adhesion hybrid technologies for load-
model will be carried out. To understand the effects of bearing automotive components,” Journal of Materials
crystallization and shrinkage at the insert interface, cross- Processing Technology, vol. 197, no. 1, pp. 363-373,
sections at the interface will be analyzed using polarized light Feb. 2008.
microscopy. Also, numerical simulations carried out using an [11] S. Yamaguchi, Y. W. Leong, T. Tsujii, M. Mizoguchi,
injection moulding simulation package (Moldflow) will U. S. Ishiaku, and H. Hamada, “Effect of crystallization
provide numbers for the degree of shrinkage of the and interface formation mechanism on mechanical
thermoplastic around the insert. A more complete properties of film-insert injection-molded
understanding of the effects of insert temperature on integrity poly(propylene) (PP) film/PP substrate,” Journal of
of an insert moulded metal-thermoplastic composite will Applied Polymer Science, vol. 98, no. 1, pp. 294-301,
thereby be obtained. 2005.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Innovative Electronics
Manufacturing Research Centre (IeMRC) for financial support
for this study, and the Materials Department at Loughborough
University and .
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