emma hockley, big bear plastics, thermoforming and materials
TRANSCRIPT
Thermoforming
Overview
Big Bear specialise in the productionmanufacture of large and medium-sized thermoformed parts in single-
sheet, twin-sheet and pressureforming technology.
Moulding
UK’s largest single and twin sheetrotary moulding machines -up to 3.5m x 2.5m x 1.2m.
Moulding
Machining and Trimming
Assembly, Clean & Pack, Delivery
Material Selection
Big Bear has experience with awide variety of thermo-plasticmaterials enabling us to advisecustomers on the best material
selection for their product.
Airline Seat Backs
Concept and Styling
.
Big Bear
History of Thermoforming
Twin Sheet
Advantages / Disadvantages
Disadvantages:
• Higher production part costs compared to injectionmoulding due to sheet extrusion, trimming and trimwaste.
• Trim waste can be granulated and re extruded.
Advantages / Disadvantages
Advantages:
• Low tooling costs compared to injection orcompression moulding or processes.
• Tooling can be tailored to type & volume of partsrequired.
• Ability to mould different thicknesses, colours & typesof materials when developing products.
Advantages / Disadvantages
Advantages continued!
• Ability to try different techniques at developmentstage before committing to production tooling.
• Ability to mould very large parts which are verydifficult and expensive to produce with othermoulding processes.
Tools for Vacuum-Forming
• Quick to produce vs. higher volume applications e.g.steel tooling for injection moulding.
• Timber, MDF & Ureol can be used for very low volume,prototype / development parts.
• For higher volumes, temperature controlled aluminiumtools are ideal.
Thermoforming Applications
Applications
Applications
Applications
ABS
Foil-Laminated ABS
PMMA - ABS
Polyolefins
• HDPE• MDPE• PP• TPE
Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene
Bearex Bumpers
Bearex Bumpers
Warwick Sub
Warwick Sub
Warwick Sub
Innovation Award – 1st Place
Warwick Sub
“…The collaboration with the specialists at Big Bearhas been hugely beneficial and successful. To verytight time constraints, a student-designed, complexhydrodynamic nose-cone has been produced,overcoming significant manufacturing difficulties toproduce an excellent result…”
Dr Ian Tuersley, Project Director
Anti-Microbial Materials
Bio-Plastics