Plastic Manufacturing Processes

The most common manufacturing methods are stated below.

• Casting: The molten material is simply poured into a mould and allowed to set.
• Moulding: Powder, liquid or paste is forced into a set of shaped dies.
• Extrusion: Plastic is forced through a suitably shaped die. Rod, sheet, tube, angle sections etc. are produced this way.
• Lay-up: Load-carrying plastic fibres and an adhesive are layered in a mould or around a former.
• Sandwich-Construction: Plastic facings have sandwiched between them, a honeycomb or foam core. Very stiff, but light structures are achieved by this method.
• Compression Moulding: The material is put into a heated, hardened, polished steel container (the die) and forced into shape by a plunger.

Note: Vacuum Forming uses a similar tooling but in this instance, the plastic is sucked into contact with the shaped die. This method is often used to manufacture aircraft interior trim.