Vacuum molding is a change in the shape of flat blanks (sheets or films) from a thermoplastic polymer material at elevated temperatures and under vacuum into three-dimensional molded products. Due to the relatively low cost of technological equipment, this technology is extremely attractive in the manufacture of batches of products from 10 to 5000 pieces, and sometimes up to 30,000 pieces.
The vacuum forming process includes the following steps:
• heating the molded material to a temperature at which it is able to change its shape without a significant change in its characteristics, that is, to the plasticity temperature;
• molding on special tooling (vacuum mold) under vacuum;
• cooling on the same equipment to a temperature at which the configuration of the molded product acquires stable dimensions (to a temperature below the heat resistance temperature);
• removal of the product from the vacuum mold with stable dimensions
• mechanical processing (trimming of edges)