During the last 10 years there has been a constantly increasing demand for micro products and components. The market demand smaller, more functional and better products. The main industries that trigger this demand are the electro-mechanical products. Problem with manufacturing these micro components has occurred with use of conventionally machines. Micro products often demands special working environment such as clean rooms and special handling. The European research project MasMicro investigates all the areas for realizing mass production of micro products. A micro factory where all the machines are adapted for micro manufacturing will answer to this need. One promising technique for manufacturing metal micro components is cold forging. Benefits with forging compared to cutting processes are little or no waste of material, stronger parts and higher production rates can be reached. A press and tools for micro cold forging are being developed at DTU. A test rig has been developed in order to simulate the transfer system inside the press. This master thesis project will focus on to implement the know how from the transfer rig to the press and to investigate a transportation system for the cold forged components to an assembly process. The work will consist in a traditional engineering design approach combined with experimental characterization of the solutions. The transfer rig was measured and analyzed. Critical elements like the complete alignment of the system were highlighted. To use the solution of holding the component with adhesive forces were tested. The test showed that holding the component with surface tension forces worked well and is suitable for handling the components in the press. Concept design and analysis of the concepts was performed for the carrier to transport the components inside the press. The carrier will transport the components fast and accurately in the press. This enables a fully automated miniature press for bulk manufacture micro components. A Surftape system was developed and investigated to transport the cold forged components to an assembly process. Surftape is a polymer tape with defined dimensions and distances for exact feeding rate. In this case, Surftape will be used to transport and position micro parts at the assembly point. The Surftape was measured and analyzed. An existing tape feeder was rebuild and designed to fit for the assembly process. Experiments were performed with the vision system for the assembly process to verify the positioning accuracy. The Surftape system enables accurate positioning of micro components and also enables the use of different assembly methods to realize a high throughput of micro products. The Surfta...
