The Advanced Materials Guide for Injection Molding The advent of CAD systems, additive manufacturing, and CNC machining has made the design and manufacture of complex part designs almost routine. Engineers today are being asked to design parts that will probably be exposed to many different factors, including extreme weather, chemicals, bodily fluids, high stress/high load, impact, and other elements and situations that could affect the way a product is designed.  To achieve this sort of advanced product design in injection molding, advanced materials are often required. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the manufacturing and industrial design considerations for a variety of material options and offer material recommendations for different product design objectives, including glass and fiber-filled materials for stronger parts and silicone and polyurethane materials for flexible parts.

Scaling Up: From 3D Printed Prototypes to Injection Mold-Ready Designs We love the invention and design development process. We love seeing the concepts come together, love working through iterations of prototypes and finally (finally!) getting a design just right, fulfilling all the technical and aesthetic requirements. But do you know what’s even better? Seeing your designs in full-scale manufacture.  Unfortunately, once your design is beautiful and working well, that’s only half the battle won. For most plastic parts, you’ll need the design to be injection molded, which is the most common low-cost technology for producing large numbers of plastic parts.  In this guide, you’ll walk away knowing:  The basics of injection molding  How to prepare your design for easy molding and sectioning complex geometry  The steps needed for testing your updated designs  Moving into low-volume production

The Ten Most Common Plastic Injection Molding Materials Plastic injection molding materials have names that sound like terms from chemistry class. It’s hard enough that polyethylene rhymes with polypropylene, which has an abbreviation (PP) that’s similar to polystyrene (PS). Choosing the right injection molding material also means knowing your application requirements, which can change between prototyping and production. Fortunately, you don’t need a PhD in chemistry to make the right material choice. There are many factors to consider, of course, but it all starts with the basics: the names and abbreviations of leading materials, their advantages and disadvantages, typical applications, and common brands and grades. Download this guide to learn more.