Thermoforming Division of the SPE

Illinois State University
SPE Equipment Grant Deals Up Thermoforming Product Design at ISU

In 2002 the Illinois State University Department of Technology received a Thermoforming Equipment Grant from the SPE Foundation. This matching grant, along with another matching grant from the Chicago Section of SPE, allowed ISU to purchase a new MAAC ASP for their plastics technology lab. This machine has fostered product design projects that required relatively large platforms and non-trivial set-ups such as plug-assist and web-assist forming. The machine complements the process control and product design coursework students receive in the Manufacturing Technology program at ISU. The cut-sheet thermoforming performed with the machine has also lead to CNC trimming of parts.

In a product design class taught by Dr. Lou Reifschneider, students are required to conceive a new product and then build the prototype tooling to fabricate the part. The MAAC ASP platform lends itself to this task. Recently, a student group designed an eighteen-inch diameter “no-spill” drink serving tray that has an insert in the center for coasters that allows for a customized tray design.

Another group wanted to improve their card play at parties and designed a card tray with a pick-up and a discard pocket that keeps the card stack straight. This project was completed by utilizing several key prototyping technologies: the complex card tray shape was not to be made with CNC machining, but with cast aluminum made from a pattern formed with a fused deposition modeler as outlined:
  1. Product designed with Unigraphics solid modeling,
  2. CAD model resized to make pattern for green sand casting of mold,
  3. Fused deposition model made of mold pattern,
  4. Green sand casting made of mold from FDM pattern,
  5. Drilled vent holes into casting, mounted mold on plenum box,
  6. Mount mold on MAAC ASP thermoformer,
  7. Form products using web-assist technique,
  8. Trim with CNC vacuum fixture,
  9. Straight Dealing.

Drink Carrier Card Carrie

Another benefit of having a thermoformer with an industrial-like controller (PLC control, adjustable pneumatic clamp frame, six set-ups) is that students in the introductory and advanced plastics processing class can see how thermoforming competes with injection molding in the making of larger products. In an advanced process control class, students are required to form a product with the MAAC ASP and then compute the unit cost to make the product via thermoforming and injection molding. They account for tooling costs, material costs, and production costs. Having the machine like the MAAC ASP makes the cost competitive calculation more meaningful for the future product designers and process engineers that pass through Dr. Reifschneider’s lab.