Liquid silicone molding characteristics

The unique characteristics of liquid silicone itself make liquid silicone molding technology diverse. In addition to the liquid injection molding and pouring molding processes introduced in this article, there are also co-injection molding, binary molding, insert molding, extrusion molding, and physical development. Bubble molding and other processes. Mastering and applying liquid silicone molding technology can not only produce high-quality products, but also save energy and reduce waste. Therefore, the development and application of liquid silicone molding technology is of great significance. What are the characteristics of liquid silicone molding?
Compared with solid rubber molding, liquid silicone injection molding does not require mastication, mixing, preforming and other operating procedures, saving manpower, material resources and energy, and reducing equipment investment and floor space.
 
Liquid silicone injection molding can realize automatic processing under fully sealed conditions, eliminate manual operation deviations, reduce the influence and pollution of various variable factors during the processing, and ensure the dimensional accuracy and intrinsic quality of the product, which is beneficial to Medical applications of liquid silicone.
 
Because liquid silicone has a very low viscosity (generally in the range of 10 to 1000 Pas), good fluidity and processability, its injection pressure is much lower than the injection molding pressure of solid rubber and plastics. The general injection pressure is 20MPa. In some cases The pressure can be lower than 1MPa, so it can produce flash-free products, reduce material waste, and reduce the wear of equipment and molds. In addition, due to the good fluidity of liquid silicone, it is especially suitable for molding large products, products with extremely complex shapes or ultra-thin products, such as ultra-thin products with a thickness of 0.5mm and a length of 100mm. This shape is ideal for solid rubber materials. Difficult to form.
 
Liquid silicone vulcanizes very quickly. During injection molding, the vulcanization reaction can generally be completed in tens of seconds to minutes at 160 to 220°C, so the molding cycle is short and the production efficiency is high.
 
Liquid silicone does not shrink during the injection molding process, but because silicone has a high thermal expansion coefficient, it usually shrinks by 2% to 3% after demoulding and cooling. The exact shrinkage data depends on the material formula. From a processing point of view, designers should consider in advance some factors that affect shrinkage.