What is a plastic mold

Plastic molds, also known as injection molds, are devices that produce (usually mass-produce) plastic parts or products by using assembled cavities (one or more) to mold products with required shapes.

The cavity of the mold consists of a female die part called the cavity and a male part called the core. The mold is installed on the injection molding machine, and the cavity is filled in the following time sequence (usually automatically):

1, clamping

2. Inject (hot, almost flowing) plastic into the mold cavity.

3. Keep the mold closed until the plastic cools to a temperature that can be ejected.

Step 4 open the mold

5. Eject plastic products

6. If necessary, the injection molding machine can extend the mold opening (MO) time to prepare for the next (injection) cycle.

The molding cycle is defined as the length of time between the end of one injection and the end of the next injection in fully automatic operation. But usually people use the number of injections per minute (or per hour) to express the productivity of production, not the length of molding cycle of several seconds.

The above contents are hand-made and extracted from Mold Engineering.