Plastics Design Rules

Plastic Product Design
Injection Molding Design Guidelines

Much has been written regarding design guidelines for injection molding.
Yet, the design guidelines can be summed up in just a few design rules.
Use uniform wall thicknesses throughout the part. This will minimize
sinking, warping, residual stresses, and improve mold fill and cycle
times.
Use generous radius at all corners. The inside corner radius should
be a minimum of one material thickness.
Use the least thickness compliant with the process, material, or
product design requirements. Using the least wall thickness for the
process ensures rapid cooling, short cycle times, and minimum shot
weight. All these result in the least possible part cost.
Design parts to facilitate easy withdrawal from the mold by providing
draft (taper) in the direction of mold opening or closing.
Use ribs or gussets to improve part stiffness in bending. This avoids
the use of thick section to achieve the same, thereby saving on part
weight, material costs, and cycle time costs.
Pushkar Deore
pushkardeore@yahoo.com
2004
Boss Design
Bosses are used for the purpose of registration of mating parts or for
attaching fasteners such as screws or accepting threaded inserts (molded-
in, press-fitted, ultrasonically or thermally inserted).
The wall thicknesses should be less than 60 % of nominal wall to minimize
sinking. However, if the boss is not in a visible area, then the wall thickness
can be increased to allow for increased stresses imposed by self-tapping
screws.
The base radius should be a minimum of 0.25 x thickness
Pushkar Deore
2004
The boss can be strengthened by gussets at the base, and by attaching it
to nearby walls with connecting ribs
Hoop stresses are imposed on the boss walls by press fitting or otherwise
inserting inserts.
The maximum insertion (or withdrawl) force Fmaxand the maximum hoop
stress, ocurring at the inner diameter of the boss, smax is given by
Pushkar Deore
2004
Pushkar Deore
2004
Failures of a boss are usually attributable to:
High hoop stresses caused because of too much interference of the
internal diameter with the insert (or screw).
Knit lines -these are cold lines of flow meeting at the boss from opposite
sides, causing weak bonds. These can split easily when stress is applied.
Knit lines should be relocated away from the boss, if possible. If not
possible, then a supporting gusset should be added near the knit line.
Pushkar Deore
2004
The use of ribs
Ribs increase the bending stiffness of a part. Without ribs, the thickness
has to be increased to increase the bending stiffness. Adding ribs
increases the moment of inertia, which increases the bending stiffness.
Bending stiffness = E (Young's Modulus) x I (Moment of Inertia)
The rib thickness should be less than the wall thickness-to keep sinking to
a minimum. The thickness ranges from 40 to 60 % of the material
thickness. In addition, the rib should be attached to the base with generous
radiusing at the corners.
Pushkar Deore
2004
At rib intersections, the resulting thickness will be more than the thickness
of each individual rib. Coring or some other means of removing material
should be used to thin down the walls to avoid excessive sinking on the
opposite side.
The height of the rib should be limited to less than 3 x thickness. It is better
to have multiple ribs to increase the bending stiffness than one high rib.
Pushkar Deore
2004
The rib orientation is based on providing maximum bending stiffness.
Depending on orientation of the bending load, with respect to the part
geometry, ribs oriented one way increase stiffness. If oriented the wrong
way there is no increase in stiffness.
Draft angles for ribs should be minimum of 0.25 to 0.5 degree of draft per
side.
If the surface is textured, additional 1.0 degree draft per 0.025 mm (0.001
inch) depth of texture should be provided
Pushkar Deore
2004
Uniform Walls
Parts should be designed with a minimum wall thickness consistent
with part function and mold filling considerations. The thinner the wall
the faster the part cools, and the cycle times are short, resulting in the
lowest possible part costs.
Also, thinner parts weight less, which results in smaller amounts of
the plastic used per part which also results in lower part costs.
The wall thicknesses of an injection-molded part generally range from
2 mm to 4 mm (0.080 inch to 0.160 inch). Thin wall injection molding
can produce walls as thin as 0.5 mm (0.020 inch).
The need for uniform walls
Thick sections cool slower than thin sections. The thin section first
solidifies, and the thick section is still not fully solidified. As the thick
section cools, it shrinks and the material for the shrinkage comes only
from the unsolidified areas, which are connected, to the already
solidified thin section.
This builds stresses near the boundary of the thin section to thick
section. Since the thin section does not yield because it is solid, the
thick section (which is still liquid) must yield. Often this leads to
warping or twisting. If this is severe enough, the part could even
crack.
Pushkar Deore
2004
Uniform wall thicknesses reduce/eliminate this problem.
Uniform walled parts are easier to fill in the mold cavity, since the
molten plastic does not face varying restrictions as it fills.
What if you cannot have uniform walls, (due to design limitations) ?
When uniform walls are not possible, then the change in section
should be as gradual as possible.
Coring can help in making the wall sections uniform, and eliminate the
problems associated with non-uniform walls.
Pushkar Deore
2004
Warping problems can be reduced by building supporting features such as
gussets.
Snap Latches
Snaps allow an easy method of assembly and disassembly of plastic parts.
Snaps consist of a cantilever beam with a bump that deflects and snaps
into a groove or a slot in the mating part.
Pushkar Deore
2004
Snaps can have a uniform cross-section or a tapered cross section (with
decreasing section height). The tapered cross-section results in a smaller
strain compared to the uniform cross-section. Here we consider the general
case of a beam tapering in both directions.
Pushkar Deore
2004
When Rh=1 and Rb=1 , the above formula does not apply, L'Hospital's rule
applies and the formula is simplified to the following:
Disassembly force. The disassembly force is a function of the coefficient

of friction, which ranges from 0.3 to 0.6 for most plastics. The coefficient of
friction also varies with the surface roughness. The rougher the surface, the
higher the coefficient of friction.
There is an angle at which the mating parts cannot be pulled apart. This is
known as the self-locking angle. If the angle of the snap is less than this
angle, then the assembly can be disassembled by a certain force given by
the above formula.
Pushkar Deore
2004
The self-locking angle a = tan-1(1/)
where is the coefficient of friction which ranges from 0.3 to 0.6 for most
plastics.
This computes to angles ranging from 73 for low coefficient of friction
plastics to 59 for high coefficient of friction plastics.
If this angle is exceeded then the snaps will not pull apart unless the snap
beam is deflected by some other means such as a release tool.
This property can be used to advantage depending on the objective of
using the snaps. If the snaps are to be used in the factory for assembly
only (never to be disassembled by the end user), then the ramp angle the
self-locking angle should be exceeded. If the user is expected to
disassemble (to change batteries in a toy for example), then the angle
should not be exceeded.
Tooling for snaps is often expensive and long lead time due to
The iterations required achieving the proper fit in terms of over travel. The
amount of over travel is a design issue. This will control how easy it is to
assemble, and how much the mated parts can rattle in assembly. This
rattle can be minimized by reducing the over travel or designing in a
preload to use the plastic's elastic properties. However, plastics tend to
creep under load, so preloading is to be avoided unless there is no other
option.
Pushkar Deore
2004
Often, side action tooling (cam actuated) is required. This increases the
mold costs and lead times.Cam actuated tooling can be avoided if bypass
coring can be used that results in an opening in the part to allow the coring
to form the step.
Pushkar Deore
2004
Some common problems of using snaps:
Too high a deflection causing plastic deformation (set) of the latch (the
moving member). Care has to be taken that the latch does not take a set.
Otherwise, the amount of latch engagement could reduce, reducing the
force to disassemble. If the set is bad enough the engagement might even
fail.
The moving arm could break at the pivot point due to too high a bending
stress. This can be avoided by adhering to the design principles and not
exceed the yield strength of the material-in fact it should be kept well below
the yield strength depending on the safety factor used.
Too much over travel leads to a sloppy fit between mating parts resulting in
loose assemblies that can rattle.
Good snap design practices
Design the latch taking into account the maximum strain encountered at
maximum deflection.
In general, long latches are more forgiving of design errors than short
latches for the same amount of deflection, because of the reduced bending
strain.
Build mold tooling with "tool safe condition". By this we mean that the
deflection or over travel, or length of engagement can be changed easily by
machining away mold tooling, rather than add material to mold tooling,
which is more expensive and not good mold practice. This "safe" condition
allows for a couple of tooling iterations of the latch, until the snap action is
considered acceptable.
Pushkar Deore
2004

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Plastic Product Design

Injection Molding Design Guidelines

Disassembly force. The disassembly force is a function of the coefficient

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