Effect of Fixture Compliance on Thermally Enhanced Edge Registration in Microlamination

Abstract

Microlamination involves the patterning, registration, and bonding of thin layers of material, called laminae, to produce highly paralleled, spatially intensified microchannel systems for the bulk processing of mass and energy. A Thermally Enhanced Edge Registration (TEER) technique has been developed for precision aligning large numbers of laminae in diffusion-bonding processes based on the differential thermal expansion between the laminae and bonding fixture. However, fixture tolerances necessary to promote buckle-free TEER bonding have been found to be very small (below 10 μm). This research focuses on the development of a new approach to thermal registration based on fixture compliance to permit looser fixture tolerances. An analysis based on both fin-buckling behavior and the compliance of the fixture is implemented to investigate the tolerance limit of a compliant TEER fixture. Experiments are conducted to verify the theoretical model. Results show that a compliant fixture can permit an acceptable tolerance limit in TEER.