Successful design with plastics

摘要

Plastics are tremendously versatile. Replacing traditional materials, they offer many new design opportunities, through their ease of processing, fabrication and decorating. Design innovations are appearing in many markets from cars to packaging, PCs to phones, and domestic appliances to medical devices. However, along with the aesthetic benefits come the commercial pressures on manufacturers to reduce tooling costs, product development time, product unit prices, while at the same time, optimising product quality in order to avoid expensive warranty and recall risks. These demands can be addressed using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tools, combined with rapid prototyping, rapid tooling and mould flow analysis, enabling more 'right first time' products and eliminating the need for expensive and time-consuming tool modifications. However, it is a fact that around 70% of plastic products fail ahead of their design life, resulting in expensive recalls, warranty claims, re-tooling and - possibly more damaging - loss of brand credibility.