Methods of Processing Plastic There are a variety of methods used to process plastic.

Each method has its advantages and disadvantages and are better suited for specific applications. These methods include: injection molding, blow molding, thermoforming, transfer molding, reaction injection molding, compression molding, and extrusion. Injection Molding The main method used for processing plastic is injection molding. With this process, the plastic is placed into a hopper. The hopper then feeds the plastic into a heated injection unit, where it is pushed through a long chamber with a reciprocating screw. Here, it is softened to a fluid state. A nozzle is located at the end of the chamber. The fluid plastic is forced through the nozzle into a cold, closed mold. The halves of the mold are held shut with a system of clamps. When the plastic is cooled and solidified, the halves open and the finished product is ejected from the press. Thermosetting materials usually are not processed with injection molding because they will soften, they harden to an infusible state. If they are processed with injection molding, they need to be moved through the heating chamber quickly so they do not set. Blow Molding Blow molding is used when the plastic item to be created needs to be hollow. A molten tube is created with blow molding by using compressed air, which blows up the tube and forces it to conform to the chilled mold. Variations of blow molding include injection, injection-stretch, and extrusion blow molding. With injection blow molding uses a perform, which is taken to a blow mold and filled with compressed air. As a result, it conforms to the interior design of the blow mold. With injection-stretch blow molding, a the plastic is stretched prior to being formed. Otherwise, it is essentially the same as the injection process. With continuous-extrusion, a molten plastic tube is continuously created. At the appropriate times, the tube is pinched between two mold halves. Then, a needle or a blow pin is inserted into the tube and blows compressed air up the part in order to force it to conform to the mold interior. With accumulatorextrusion, the molten plastic material is gathered in the chamber before it is forced through a die in order to form a tube.

Thermoforming Thermoforming uses a plastic sheet, which is formed with the mold by applying air or through mechanical assistance. The air pressure used can be nearly zero psi, or several hundred psi. At 14 psi, which is equivalent to atmospheric pressure, the pressure is created by evacuating the space between the mold and the sheet. This is known as vacuum forming. Transfer Molding Transfer molding is generally used only for forming thermosetting plastics. It is similar to compression molding because the plastic is cured into an infusible state through pressure and heat. Unlike compression molding, however, transfer molding involves heating the plastic to a point of plasticity prior to being placed into the mold. The mold is then forced closed with a hydraulically operated plunger. Transfer molding was initially developed as a method for molding intricate products, such as those with many metal inserts or with small, deep holes. This is because compression molding sometimes disturbed the position of the metal inserts and the holes of these types of products. With transfer molding, on the other hand, the liquefied plastic easily flows around the metal parts without causing them to change position. Reaction Injection Molding Reaction injection molding, or RIM, is one of the newer processes used in the plastics industry. It differs from liquid casting in that the liquid components are mixed together in a chamber at a lower temperature of only about 75 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit before it is injected into a closed mold. Here, an exothermic reaction occurs. As a result, RIM requires less energy than other injection molding systems. Reinforced RIM, or R-RIM, involves adding materials such as milled or chopped glass fiber in the mixture in order to increase the stiffness. Compression Molding Compression molding is the most common process used with thermosetting materials and is usually not used for thermoplastics. With this process, the material is squeezed into its desired shape with the help of pressure and heat. Plastic molding powder and other materials are added to the mix in order to create special qualities or to strengthen the final product. When the mold is closed and heated, the material goes through a chemical change that causes it to harden into its desired shape. The amount temperature, amount of pressure, and length of time utilized during the process depends on the desired outcome.

Extrusion The process of extrusion is usually used to make products such as film, continuous sheeting, tubes, profile shapes, rods, coat wire, filaments, cords, and cables. As with injection molding, dry plastic material is placed into a hopper and fed into a long heating chamber. At the end of the chamber, however, the material is forced out of a small opening or a die in the shape of the desired finished product. As the plastic exits the die, it is placed on a conveyor belt where it is allowed to cool. Blowers are sometimes used to aid in this process, or the product may be immersed in water to help it cool. Injection Molding Design Guidelines Much has been written regarding design guidelines for injection molding. Yet, the design guidelines can be summed up in just a few design rules. 1 Use uniform wall thicknesses throughout the part. This will minimize sinking, warping, residual stresses, and improve mold fill and cycle times. Wall Section Considerations Voids and Shrinkage Warpage 2 Use generous radius at all corners. The inside corner radius should be a minimum of one material thickness. Radius Limitations 3 Use the least thickness compliant with the process, material, or product design requirements. Using the least wall thickness for the process ensures rapid cooling, short cycle times, and minimum shot weight. All these result in the least possible part cost. 4 Design parts to facilitate easy withdrawal from the mold by providing draft (taper) in the direction of mold opening or closing. Draft and Texture 5 Use ribs or gussets to improve part stiffness in bending. This avoids the use of thick section to achieve the same, thereby saving on part weight, material costs, and cycle time costs. Rib Design

The use of ribs

Ribs increase the bending stiffness of a part. Without ribs, the thickness has to be increased to increase the bending stiffness. Adding ribs

increases the moment of inertia, which increases the bending stiffness. Bending stiffness = E (Young's Modulus) x I (Moment of Inertia) The rib thickness should be less than the wall thickness-to keep sinking to a minimum. The thickness ranges from 40 to 60 % of the material thickness. In addition, the rib should be attached to the base with generous radiusing at the corners.

At rib intersections, the resulting thickness will be more than the thickness of each individual rib. Coring or some other means of removing material should be used to thin down the walls to avoid excessive sinking on the opposite side.

The height of the rib should be limited to less than 3 x thickness. It is better to have multiple ribs to increase the bending stiffness than one high rib.

The rib orientation is based on providing maximum bending stiffness. Depending on orientation of the bending load, with respect to the part geometry, ribs oriented one way increase stiffness. If oriented the wrong way there is no increase in stiffness.

Draft angles for ribs should be minimum of 0.25 to 0.5 degree of draft per side. If the surface is textured, additional 1.0 degree draft per 0.025 mm (0.001 inch) depth of texture should be provided.

Boss Design Bosses are used for the purpose of registration of mating parts or for attaching fasteners such as screws or accepting threaded inserts (molded-in, pressfitted, ultrasonically or thermally inserted). The wall thicknesses should be less than 60 % of nominal wall to minimize sinking. However, if the boss is not in a visible area, then the wall thickness can be increased to allow for increased stresses imposed by self-tapping screws. The base radius should be a minimum of 0.25 x thickness

The boss can be strengthened by gussets at the base, and by attaching it to nearby walls with connecting ribs.

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The maximum insertion (or withdrawl) force Fmaxand the maximum hoop stress, ocurring at the inner diameter of the boss, smax is given by

Failures of a boss are usually attributable to:

High hoop stresses caused because of too much interference of the internal diameter with the insert (or screw). Knit lines -these are cold lines of flow meeting at the boss from opposite sides, causing weak bonds. These can split easily when stress is applied. Knit lines should be relocated away from the boss, if possible. If not possible, then a supporting gusset should be added near the knit line.

Counter Bore/Sink

Counter-sinking is often done to accommodate heads of flat head screws. However as can be seen from the figure, there is a sideways component of the thrust which could split the countersink due to the generated hoop stresses Counter-boring is done to accomodate pan-head, fillister-head or roundhead screws or other screws with flat-bottomed undersides.

Counter-bored screws exert only force in the axial direction, thus operate mostly under compression, with no sideward component to the applied force vector. Such design is inherently more robust than counter-sinking.

Inserts

Inserts are used in plastic parts, to allow the use of fasteners such as machine screws. The advantage of this is that since these inserts are made out of metal, they are robust. Further, machine threads also allow great many cycles of assembly and disassembly Inserts are installed using one of the following methods: Ultrasonic insertion. The insert is vibrated using an ultrasonic transducer, called the "horn" mounted in an ultrasonic machine.

Ads by Google Properties plastics Mechanical properties of polymers with our Polymers datasheets www.Omnexus.com The horn has to be specially designed for each application for optimum performance. The ultrasonic energy is converted to thermal energy due to the vibrating action, which allows the insert to be melted inside the hole. This type of insertion can be done rapidly, with short cycle times, low residual stresses. Good melt flow characteristics for the plastic are necessary for the process to be successful. The ultrasonic equipment is relatively expensive, and also needs a custom horn for optimal production rates.

Thermal Insertion. The inserts are heated by placing them over the hole and pressing them in with a heated tool. The tool first heats the insert, then the insert is pressed in.

The advantage of this method is that the special tooling necessary is relatively simple, usually a cylindrical tool, which can be easily, fabricated in the machine shop. The cycle times are usually short. However, care has to be taken, not to overheat the insert or the plastic, or it will lead to local plastic degradation. Press Fitting.The inserts are designed with barbs (straight knurls that are interrupted) and can be press fitted inside the hole in the boss. This process is fast and requires no special tooling. However, high hoop stressesare generated, so the boss design has to be robust. Also, the retention is strictly based on press fitting and the small amount of material

that flows inside the barbs. Thus retention is not very high. Molded-in Inserts. The inserts are placed in the mold prior to the injection of plastic. The injection of the plastic completely encases the insert on the outer diameter and provides very good retention. In fact retention of such inserts is the best compared to other process (barb/knurl design being the same). This process slows down the operation of the mold, since the inserts have to be manually placed inside the mold. Inserts can be automatically placed in a mold, but this greatly increases the complexity and cost of the mold. This can only be justified if the volume of production is very high to offset the cost savings in shorter cycle times.

Self-Tapping Screws Self-tapping screws are often used to fasten plastic parts together. Selftapping screws are available both in thread-cutting type as well as threadforming type. Thread Forming Pros Cons High tensile values High hoop stress, boss has to be designed to withstand this stress High amount of torque to strip threads Large number of cycles of assembly and disassembly possible Stress relaxation possible Suitable for plastics that are non-brittle Not suitable for brittle plastics Thread Cutting Pros Cons Lower Hoop Stress Lower Tensile Pullout Suitable for brittle plastics Lower amount of torque to pull the threads Snap Latches

Snaps allow an easy method of assembly and disassembly of plastic parts. Snaps consist of a cantilever beam with a bump that deflects and snaps into a groove or a slot in the mating part.

Snaps can have a uniform cross-section or a tapered cross section (with decreasing section height). The tapered cross-section results in a smaller strain compared to the uniform cross-section. Here we consider the general case of a beam tapering in both directions. Ads by Google CrownMark Snap Fasteners precision pressing manufacturer in Japan over 60 years www.hisanaga-ss.co.jp/english/index

When Rh=1 and Rb=1 , the above formula does not apply, L'Hospital's rule appliesand the formula is simplified to the following:

The disassembly force is a function of the coefficient of friction, which ranges from 0.3 to 0.6 for most plastics. The coefficient of friction also varies

with the surface roughness. The rougher the surface, the higher the coefficient of friction. There is an angle at which the mating parts cannot be pulled apart. This is known as the self-locking angle. If the angle of the snap is less than this angle, then the assembly can be disassembled by a certain force given by the above formula.

The self-locking angle a = tan-1(1/) where is the coefficient of friction which ranges from 0.3 to 0.6 for most plastics. This computes to angles ranging from 73 for low coefficient of friction plastics to 59 for high coefficient of friction plastics. If this angle is exceeded then the snaps will not pull apart unless the snap beam is deflected by some other means such as a release tool. This property can be used to advantage depending on the objective of using the snaps. If the snaps are to be used in the factory for assembly only (never to be disassembled by the end user), then the ramp angle the self-locking angle should be exceeded. If the user is expected to disassemble (to change batteries in a toy for example), then the angle should not be exceeded. Tooling for snaps is often expensive and long lead time due to - The iterations required achieving the proper fit in terms of over travel. The amount of over travel is a design issue. This will control how easy it is to assemble, and how much the mated parts can rattle in assembly. This rattle can be minimized by reducing the over travel or designing in a preload to use the plastic's elastic properties. However, plastics tend to creep under load, so preloading is to be avoided unless there is no other option.

- Often, side action tooling (cam actuated) is required. This increases the mold costs and lead times.Cam actuated tooling can be avoided if bypass coring can be used that results in an opening in the part to allow the coring to form the step.

Some common problems of using snaps: - Too high a deflection causing plastic deformation (set) of the latch (the moving member). Care has to be taken that the latch does not take a set. Otherwise, the amount of latch engagement could reduce, reducing the force to disassemble. If the set is bad enough the engagement might even fail.

- The moving arm could break at the pivot point due to too high a bending stress. This can be avoided by adhering to the design principles and not exceed the yield strength of the material-in fact it should be kept well below the yield strength depending on the safety factor used. - Too much over travel leads to a sloppy fit between mating parts resulting in loose assemblies that can rattle. Good snap design practices - Design the latch taking into account the maximum strain encountered at maximum deflection. - In general, long latches are more forgiving of design errors than short latches for the same amount of deflection, because of the reduced bending strain. - Build mold tooling with "tool safe condition". By this we mean that the deflection or over travel, or length of engagement can be changed easily by machining away mold tooling, rather than add material to mold tooling, which is more expensive and not good mold practice. This "safe" condition allows for a couple of tooling iterations of the latch, until the snap action is considered acceptable. Living Hinge Living hinges are thin sections of plastic that connect two segments of a part to keep them together and allow the part to be opened and closed. Typically these are used in containers that are used in high volume applications such as toolboxes, fish tackle boxes, CD boxes etc.

The materials used to make a living hinge are usually a very flexible plastic such as polypropylene and polyethylene. These can flex more than a million cycles without failure.

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The gate location should be such as to allow the plastic to flow across the hinge for maximum strength. As the part comes out of the mold, it needs to be flexed a minimum of 2 times while it is still hot, for optimum strength Coining is often done to give the hinge, enhanced properties. The coining process compresses the hinge to a pre-determined thickness. The strain induced is greater than the yield stress of the plastic. This will plastically deform the hinge (i.e. place it outside the elastic range into

the plastic range). The amount of coining (compression) should be less than the ultimate stress, to keep the hinge from fracturing.

The finished thickness after coining should be from 0.25 to 0.5 mm (0.010 to 0.020 inch). This keeps the stress in the outer fibers from exceeding the yield strength when being flexed.

This process can also be done by heating the hinge or the coining tool to a temperature below the glass transition tempertature of the plastic. This allows for easier coining and somewhat enhanced properties, as the plastic "flow" easier when being heated.