Author(s)

R. Y. Zhang, K. Chen, L. X. Wang, W. J. Zhu

Department of Materials and Energy Engineering, Guongdong University of Technology,Guongzhou 510090, China.
Department of Materials and Energy Engineering, Guongdong University of Technology,Guongzhou 510090, China..
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.

An X-ray microtomography system was used for inspecting and characterizing the packaging of micro mixers of planar configuration. Two types of micro mixers were machined from acrylic plate by means of precision milling, and four different packaging techniques were tested for mixer assembly: adhesive bonding, plasma bonding, screw-bolting, and xurography with doublesided tape. The interiors of the mixers were thoroughly examined by navigating the threedimensional images generated by the micro CT system. It was found that plasma bonding did not work well on acrylics. The boundaries between the acrylic plate and the plastic tape used in tape bonding were almost indistinguishable in the X-ray images because the densities of these two materials are very close. Of the different packaging techniques we tested tape bonding provided good sealing without the drawback of glue or sealing materials smeared into the mixing chamber or flow channels.

Characterization of plastic packaging, Micro-CT (Computed Tomography), Micromixer

R. Zhang, K. Chen, L. Wang and W. Zhu, "Three-dimensional Inspection and Characterization of Plastic Micro Mixers Fabricated by Different Packaging Techniques," Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, Vol. 8 No. 3, 2009, pp. 171-179. doi: 10.4236/jmmce.2009.83015.