Could an Alternative to Thermoforming Differentiate While Reducing Costs?
- Alternative Design
- Light Weighting
- Materials
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P.O. Box 129
Butler, IN 46721
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Light Weighting is as it sounds: taking an existing product or concept and finding ways to minimize the product weight without jeopardizing performance or ergonomics. It can be as simple as minimizing the wall thickness or as challenging as a total redesign. Payback can be swift, with specific consideration given to resin usage savings, tooling modification costs, and annual volumes. The structural foam process is inherent to light-weighting with a typical 20% reduction in part weight while increasing the strength-to-weight ratio versus thermoforming.
Changing the resin to an alternative material with comparable performance characteristics provides the fastest route to a more sustainable product. Structural foam can be used with a wide range of thermoplastics, including thermoplastic rubbers for additional strength and sustainability gains. In fact, in comparison to thermoforming, you should see a cosmetic improvement (less sink and minimized warpage) and a lower-cost material than sheet formed product.
Do you have an application you would like to explore as a structural foam process? Contact us and we will send you a sample kit that displays many of the attributes discussed above.
View the ROI Chart below for a direct comparison to your current molding operation.