Thermoforming is the process of heating huge plastic sheets to a very high temperature and cooling them to the required format. Vacuum forming is a thread or type of thermoforming in which vacuum is applied between the molds and the plastic to create various shapes. Thermoforming has several advantages and disadvantages compared to other plastic molding methods such as injection molding. In addition to vacuum forming, various other methods such as curtain forming, twin sheet forming and pressure forming can be incorporated together with thermoforming to produce different types of products. Various types of plastic can be molded in the method.
Disadvantages of thermoforming
1. Thermoforming is quite expensive. Compared to other methods such as injection molding, this method can cost up to 50% more.
2. Large plastic sheets are used in the method. They must be driven into the rollers over and over again. This leads to a lot of extrusion.
3. The plastic street is stretched under pressure in this method. Therefore, products formed by thermoforming break at a certain temperature.
4. Thermoforming uses more plastic than other methods. Almost 10-20% more plastic is used to make any product with this method. This increases the cost and also creates a lot of waste.
5. The vacuum forming process performed in conjunction with thermoforming sometimes does not give the required shapes. The whole process has to be repeated, which is expensive and time consuming.
Advantages of thermoforming
There are several advantages to using this method despite all these disadvantages.
1. Thermoforming is the only method in which huge sheets of plastic can be molded into huge objects. All other methods are used only to make small objects.
2. Although the process is expensive, the tools needed to trade or quite cheap. Injection molding machinery is almost 33% more expensive than thermoforming machinery tools.
3. Several different products can be prepared on the thermoforming machines. Only certain products can be prepared on other machines. Almost all types of plastic can be used for plastic. Other methods use only specific plastic for production.
4. Skilled manpower to operate thermoforming machinery is available in abundance. But, there are far fewer workers capable of operating injection molding or vacuum forming machinery.
5. The method forms superior quality products that use more plastic. Therefore, they are more durable than objects created through other local methods.
There are many more advantages to the method. Although expensive and time consuming thermoformed products are preferred by most packaging industries due to their high quality.