Why Thermoforming?
Being a thermoforming machine manufacturing company - Machinecraft get’s asked the question asked a lot - Why choose thermoforming over other plastic processing technologies like Injection Moulding, Blow Moulding, Rotational Moulding or Glass Fibre Lay-up process?
Applications for Thermoforming include parts for Automotive - Passenger and Commercial Vehicles, Agriculture & Earth Moving Equipment, Lightweight Electric Vehicles, Interiors of Busses, Railway Interiors, Aircraft Interiors, Refrigeration Liners, Whitegoods, Renewables - Windmill Nacelle, Signages, Luggage, Sanitary-ware Bathtubs Jacuzzi Spas & Showerpanels, Chemical Toilets, Material Handling Pallets, Gym Equipment Covers, Motor Covers, Medical Device Covers, Skylights, Automats / Car mats, Mobile Robot coverings, Bedliner of Pickup Trucks ..
Here are some of our favourite answers:
Thermoforming is the least stressed process in plastics today – so the products are prone to less breakage. You don’t impart a bunch of internal stress in the structure. When you are blow moulding or injection moulding you are taking the resin to a melting point and then you are slamming it into a cold tool to chill it and that imparts a lot of stress in the part. Thermoforming does not use melted pallets. The raw material that thermoforming takes an extruded sheet anneals it to a zero stress state where it’s just below its glass transition point and then we thermoform it around a tool that’s typically about 70 Degree Celsius. The material is heated and then vacuum evaporates the trapped air.
Thermoforming is a light-weight technology - the products made using thermoforming process would be the least weight product compared to if made using any other process - which is why usually all the interiors of aircraft is made using the thermoforming process. It is an increasing choice of technology for development of parts for electro-mobility platforms like cars, microcars, motorbikes, commercial vehicles to have an overall reduced top-hat body weight for an increase in range of the EV.
Thermoforming is a multi-material technology, so you can use different materials like ABS, PMMA, PC, TPO, HDPE, PP, TPE, etc. on the same thermoforming machine. There are many suppliers of simple mono materials with additives, few suppliers of 2-layer-material and very few suppliers of multi-material.
You can use composite material with multi-layers using thermoforming - co-extruded multilayer sheets consist of an easily thermoform-able and high impact ABS and a top layer of impact modified acrylic (PMMA) for UV protection, multilayer composite made from thermoform-able polyolefin with a TPE top layer, multilayer composite of polycarbonate with extremely high impact strength and heat distortion resistance, Co-extruded and coloured polycarbonate multi-layer-composites in matt metallic colours, multi-layer composite with a layer of ABS/PC-Compound with flame retardant properties (halogen free) and a top layer of ABS, etc.
Thermoforming can be ++ with support of companies like FRIMO Germany, which has developed special know-how to laminate PVC & TPO based artificial leather foils with a PU foam layer & adhesive layer on the B-surface - on a hard injection moulded substrate for superior soft feel interiors used in the car industry
Thermoforming can be ++ with support of companies like FVF Japan, which has developed special know-how to laminate metallic or wooden grain foil over a hard injection moulded substrate or metal outerbody part used in the car industry
Thermoforming is not only an aesthetic technology - but you can re-inforce a thermoformed panel with another thermoformed panel with ribs on the back side and bond them together using ultra-sonic welding. You can also re-inforce a high-gloss ABS/PMMA thermoformed panel with glass-fibre sheets using SRRIM process OR the more sophisticated Long Fibre Injection (LFI) process - mainly used in the development of parts for agriculture & off-highway vehicles
Thermoforming is a low-pressure process and thereby the tools / moulds that are used to make parts using thermoforming are low-cost and are easy to develop. Most popular choice for starting a product using thermoforming is to first develop prototype tooling in artificial wood / MDF - for producing 10s of parts; then the next choice is usually tools made using glass fibre for producing 100s of parts; followed by either casted aluminium or block of aluminium that is CNC machined for serial producing 1000s of parts.
Thermoforming is still an art and a technology of choice for creative mind-set who do not like to work on a per kilogram calculation basis and would like to develop top class products that are not only aesthetic but also strong and resilient.
What is your favourite reason to choose thermoforming to develop plastic parts? Comment on the section below!