Top 5 Considerations When Designing a Part for Injection Molding

Injection Molding is an excellent option for mass producing a product. To reduce potential risks of failure and incurring additional costs it is important to ensure your product is designed to run as cost-effectively as possible. Lack of designing for manufacturing can cause any number of issues, such as delays in expensive mold modifications, manufacturing delays, poor part quality and unplanned cost overruns.

I sat down with a few of BeraTek’s manufacturing experts who provided the following top considerations for designing a part for injection molding.

1. MATERIAL SELECTION: Research and chose a resin that works for the application while also considering price and availability.
2. WALL STOCK THICKNESS:Thin/thick part designs can suffer from uneven shrinking and will affect part performance. Also, be sure to take into consideration the need for draft as part of the wall stock thickness. One of the primary concerns with wall stock thickness are sinking surface details on attached and surrounding surfaces.
3. REINFORCING RIBS:To help maintain part shape and function ribs can be added. Take into consideration thickness, draft, and sink concerns in these areas as well.
4. UNDERCUT FEATURES:If the part requires internal/external features that will keep it from being ejected from the core and cavity of the mold those are called undercuts. If the design can be updated to eliminate those features it will be more cost-effective in the mold design and construction.
5. SURFACE FINISHES:Parts may be able to have multiple surface finishes, taking into consideration its function. Defining the need for a polished, textured, or machined finish surface directly affects mold construction costs.

In addition to the above considerations, it is extremely important to guide all design efforts with a specification document that clearly provides answers to the questions above. Each decision made related to the appearance and/or function can have direct impact on the part design itself. Depending on the complexity of the product, it is advised you consider consulting with an Industrial Designer early on to hammer out many of the details related to form and function. It is recommended, industrial design should be completed before spending time on the engineering side of product development.

To learn more about BeraTek and how we can design, manufacture and launch products quickly, contact us at info@beratek-industries.com.

Originally published at www.beratekindustries.com on January 16, 2017.