Vacuum forming

Rodrigo Santos Andrade, 15044874,

Faculty of Science and Engineering,
Materials Processing, MT4943

Introduction

The vacuum forming process is the cheapest and most common process used for high volume
thin gage products. It consists in place a sheet over a cavity mold in the vacuum former and
clamp it in the position to conform and assume the shape of the mold. Then the heaters are
turned on and the material start to become viscous (but it depends of the heating time). Then,
the heaters are turned off and the mold is moved upwards and the vacuum is turned on, the air
is evacuated in the cavity and creates pressure that helps the material to conform to the mold
and get the details of the cavity. After that, air enters the cavity to helps the piece cool and to
be removed. The typical process steps are: clamping, heating the sheet, pre-stretch (bubble),
forming, cooling and release.[5]
Clamping open and close the mold, supplies the force to keep the mold closed when the
material is injected into the mold. The moving and fixed platens of the injection molding
machine holds the mold tool together under pressure. The clamp frame needs to be
sufficiently powerful enough to handle the thickest material likely to be formed on the.
Heating Heaters in the experiment the machine had 5 ceramic heaters, it has many heaters
because it is vital that the sheet is heated uniformly over its entire surface area and throughout
its thickness, so it must have series of zones which are controlled by energy regulators.
Pre-stretch ( Bubble) occurs when the plastic has reached its forming temperature or plastic
state and it can be pre- stretched to ensure even wall thickness when the vacuum is applied.
Pre-stretch is an helpful feature when forming deep draw parts with minimum draft angles
and high mold surface detail.
Vacuum occurs when the material is already pre-stretched and then a vacuum can be applied
to assist in forming the sheet. A dry vane vacuum pump is used to draw the air trapped
between the sheet and the mold. This enables a two stage vacuum to be applied ensuring
rapid molding of the heated.
Cooling and Release occurs after the plastic is formed. The piece must be allowed to cool
before being released, because if released too soon then deformation of the molding will
result in a reject part. Once cooled sufficiently the sheet can be released by a reverse pressure
activated through the vacuum system. The part is then stripped from the mould and
transferred to the trimming station. [5]
In the vacuum process it is important to know the characteristics of the material. Polymer
can be glassy in the lower temperature, then it became rubbery in a medium temperature and
increasing the heat it finally flows, what is a thermoplastic polymer behavior. But also it
could not change with the increase of the temperature, being glassy until it degrade, what is a
thermoset polymer behavior. [3][2][1]

Figure 1: Differences between thermoplastic and thermoset polymers

An important parameter is the flow pattern, the contour the melt takes sequentially as it fills
the cavity, that can be laminar or turbulent, or whether flow separation or secondary flows
exist. When the material is heated during the injection process its viscosity decrease and then
it flows better. An ideal elastic response is when the material exhibits no time effects and
negligible inertial effects. The material responds instantaneously to applied stress. When this
stress is removed, the sample recovers its original dimensions completely and
instantaneously. A pure viscous flow is when fluids have no elastic character; they cannot
support a strain. A rubberlike elasticity is when the response of the materials to mechanical
stress is a slight deviation from ideal elastic behavior, they show non-Hookean elastic
behavior, which means that although rubbers are elastic, their elasticity is such that stress and
strain are not necessarily proportional. A viscoelasticity is when the material combine the
characteristics of both elastic and viscous materials. [2][3][5]

Materials and Methods

A Vacumm CR Clarke 725 FLT was used in this experiment which consists of a sheet are of
228x432x6mm , and working with a pressure of 0,86 Bar. Polypropylene was used
following the P91 directories for vacuuming process.
A tutor explained all the settings and the machine functionality, furthermore presenting tests
and concepts about the process. All the information were collected for further discussions on
the subject. Data were collected and used to compare the variation through the equation 1.

t=

Objective

(Thickness post reversionThickness prereversion)

100
Thickness prereversion

Equation 1

The aim of this experiment is to provide understanding about the vacuum forming, the
concepts, parameters and directories for the process. As much as the role which stress
develops in the final product itself.

Results and Discussion

Different settings were applied resulting in different responses in thickness in different parts
of the final product (Figure 2) as shown in the Table 1.
Table 1: Thickness response by temperature variation

Temperature

95C
Prereversion
0.58
0.76
0.96
0.54

Site
A (wheel)
B (bonnet)
C (roof)
D (door)

Post
Reversion
0.75
0.86
0.98
0.72

110C
Prereversion
0.55
0.75
0.95
0.5

Post
Reversion
0.69
0.84
0.98
0.65

125C
Prereversion
0.53
0.73
0.95
0.47

Post
Reversion
0.65
0.81
0.97
0.6

Figure 2: Final products

The increase percentage along temperature variation could be calculated using the Equation
1. as shown in Table 2 and Figure 1.
Table 2: Thickness variation
t
tA
tB
tC
tD

95C
29%
13%
2%
33%

110C
25%
12%
3%
30%

125C
23%
11%
2%
28%

Influence of temperature on thickness variation

Wheel (A)

Bonnet (B)

Roof (C)

Door (D)

Figure 3: Thickness variation along temperature

As shown in Table 2. the most deformed part of the final product was the wheel and the door
(side surface), this could be noticed by measuring the thickness. The sheet used in the process
had an original thicknes of 1mm, the roof and the bonet were thicker than the side parts but
they were also deformed. This was due to the fact that the sheet was stretched to conform to
the mould.
Also, by the graphic it is possible to observe that the vary in the thickness pre-reversion and
post reversion change when the process occurs with the vary of heating time, which also vary
the temperature. This can be explained knowing the glass transition temperature (Tg) and the
melt temperature (Tm) for the material used in the process. The material used was the
polystyrene (PS) which has Tg= 95C and the Tm=240C (but it decomposes in a lower
temperature).
When the heating time were shorter the sheet didnt heated enough to exceed the glass
transition. As showed in the graphic below, at 95C the material is glassy and by the results in
this situation it cant deform enough to acquire all the template features. Because of this, the
percentage of t, in this case, on the material is the highest. When the material was processed
at 110C it was above the Tg, this means that it wasnt as glassy as the 95C one, however it
wasnt viscous enough to produce a high quality form. Finally, at 125C the polymer reached
the best process temperature and the final product acquire all the details from the mould.
Also, the percentage of reversion was the smallest.
The change in the thickness of the material also changes the distance of the polymer chains
and increase the material stress (Figure 4). It can be solved by finding a great heating time
and temperature that have the smallest deformation and then doing the reversion in the final
product, or it can be done by changing the angle of the mould. Rounder moulds are better for
decrease the material stress, once the material sheet would be stretched more gently.

Figure 4: Material response by stress in different regions.

Also it is important to remember that the sheet used is usually extruded and its chains are
always stronger in the extrusion direction. So the strength in the final product will be
different depending the chain alignment. It happens because the chemical bounds between the
chains are weaker than the bounds between the molecules, so the tensile strength in the
extrusion direction is bigger (Figure 5). [1]

Figure 5: Change in tensile strength.

Conclusion
The experiment showed the aspects and functionality of the vacuum process giving
understand of its concepts, parameters, properties that need to be taken in consideration and
its applications in the materials processing. During vacuum former process it is important to
know the polymer characteristics and behaviour. Also, the polymer sheet processing should
be known to determinate the strongest parts on the final product. For decrease the shrinkage it
is possible to do a reversion or change the mould angles. For the polystyrene the best

temperature to avoid a big shrinkage was 125C, but it needed a reversion after the vacuum
forming process.

Reference List
1.
2.

Callister, William D. Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction.

Ebewele, Robert O. Polymer Science and Technology. Department of
Chemical Engineering, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria

3.

Fred W. Billmeyer, Jr. Textbook of polymer science. Third Ed, John Wiley &
Sons

4.
5.

Formech Internation Ltd., A vacuum forming guide

Klein, Peter, Fundamentals of Plastics Thermoforming. Morgan &
Claypool Publishers, 2009