Low-pressure structural foam molding is very similar to the conventional injection molding process, with a much lower pressure. In most instances of low pressure molding, the molten polymer is injected with nitrogen gas, a chemical blowing agent or an inert gas (NI, CO2, CBA…). The mold won’t be completely filled with the resin as with high-pressure molding, the injected gases are mixed with the polymer, and then they are allowed to expand inside the mold.

There are many kinds of CFAs, since they can be organic or inorganic compounds. CFAs generate exothermic or endothermic reactions, and they are used in this process to nucleate the foam structure that results from the expansion of the gas that is injected to the mold, as it decomposes while dispersing through the polymer melt. Keep reading

Materials Used & Part Characteristics:  PA12 is the most common, but PA6 and PA11 are also common.  ABS, PC PMMA, POM and some TPU’s and compounds with additives are also available. Nylons offer strong, heat resistant and durable parts.

Where used: Polyjet is often used for manufacturing parts with gaskets, seals or need for soft grips combined with hard plastics. Combining colored and transparent resins also allow for illustration and creative design. Polyjet is also used for creating wax molds for investment castings

Overview: Polyjet provides the ability to print multi-material, highly accurate and tight tolerance parts. Parts can be black, white, transparent and have a range of softness from rubberlike to rigid in the same part.

Post Mold Stability Injection molding gives EVA Foam parts a very soft and malleable body after finishing their molding cycle. Because of this malleability a cooling fixture is sometimes required during the post-molding phase.

If you don’t feel foam is right for your product (ask us to clarify if you’re not sure) we also have much experience in silicone and plastic injection molding.

If you have any question just get in touch with us! At J-CAD Inc. we’ll be glad to help you with your project. Call us 1-888-202-2052 or email jason@jcadusa.com

Materials Used & Part Characteristics: A variety of UV curable polymers allow for simulation for a range of material substitutes. Polyjet has soft materials in Shore A hardness from 25 – 95, stiff but flexible materials similar in feel too polypropylene, and rigid materials with characteristics similar to ABS. Corners designed to be sharp may have a slight radius.

The visual above is just the basic principle of the foam injection molding process. The quality of the end product is highly dependent on how delicately the foam injection process is balanced which we have mastered at J-CAD Inc. We have done away with stop-and-flow molding because of the resulting inconsistency in gas dosing. We have come up with ways to ensure that there is continuous flow of both the blowing agent and polymer during the injection process. We have also introduced a lot more modifications to ensure that the end products are of superior quality and the cost of our products are affordable.

The process starts with the gas/polymer mixture being short-shot injected through nozzles directly into the mold. The blowing agent then expands and pushes the molten resin into the cavities, thus reducing sink holes over heavy cross-sections. This approach to manufacturing gives the product a cellular core surrounded by a rigid and dense outer skin, building structurally sound products while reducing their weight and density because of the development of the structural core. Keep reading

Overview:  SLS provides the ability to generated complex geometry, highly accurate and durable parts that are suitable for use as functional parts.

Direct injection expanded foam molding is also known as injection molded foam, and it’s used to create soft foam products from a complex base resin made from an ethylene and polyolefin elastomer. They become very rigid, but are really easy to use and cure, and can be used as a lightweight casting or filling material.

High-Quality Dimensioning With EVA Foam molding the process can be closely controlled, so you can expect to produce really consistent dimensional parts. The manufacturing of the foam and the final product are the same, they happen at the same time. Because of the simple controlling of the process, there is minimal part-to-part variation.

Overview: SLA provides the ability to print very tight tolerances, smooth surface finishes and high resolution of small features. The main downside is the lower mechanical strength and not suitable for exposure to UV or sunlight.

One interesting fact about flexible foam is that it contours around molds, allowing you to take shapes and make flexible objects that can easily be used for production items. These are usually produced with silicone molds, but urethane or other molds Keep reading

At J-CAD Inc. we produce a very wide variety of products owing to our diverse customer backgrounds and industries served. Our products include:

Flexible polyurethane foams are easy to use and durable, and very efficient for absorbing energy at controlled rates, changing resonance or shock-pulse frequencies and relieving static stress on flexible materials. Some foams are also great at handling really high temperatures, with some avoiding long-term effects up to 180°F.

Where used: Cosmetic prototypes that require high resolution details and smooth surface finishes. Also used in molds for casting other materials:• Casting and Modeling• 3D Printing

can work well as long as they are sealed and a silicone release agent is used on them prior to molding. Another plus with molding in flexible foam is the ability to add color pigments to achieve vibrant colors.

At J-CAD Inc. we are not specific about the form in which you provide us information about your project design. It could even be hand drawn, we don’t mind. We will convert it to a 3D file required for mold making and injection molding mass production. We will work with you to ensure that the design is optimized for the purpose for which it is intended. Our experienced team of highly skilled designers will help you bring out the best out of your product.

Our equipment have been customized to ensure utmost efficiency and cost effectiveness while maintaining superior quality. Our pumps can handle a highly controlled flow rate of a very wide range. They also handle a wide pressure range that is highly regulated.

Where used: Machining especially useful in evaluating mechanical performance in specific materials prior to finalizing part geometry and material specifications. Machining is suitable for prototyping and low volume production.

When doing foam injection molding there are several ways of modifying a material’s properties. In most instances what you are looking for is weight reduction and sink removal on your parts, and one of the main ways of solving that is the usage of Chemical Foaming Agents (CFAs).

Polyurethane foams are made by mixing two-part polyurethanes, that expand upon mixing and fill the molds, allowing for a lot of variety in material density and functionality. It’s important to stabilize both polyurethanes to a certain temperature; if when mixing the temperature is too hot the foam will be too light and weak, if the temperature is too cold the foam becomes too dense.

Our plastic prototypes are high quality and are made with accuracy and consistency. Our network of providers has the expertise to consult on your design and make the appropriate changes easily and at a low cost.

In Foam injection molding, thermoplastic materials are first melted. When the melted plastic is evenly soft, an inert gas (blowing agent) is introduced into the polymer melt to make the solution foam-able. The solution is then injected into a mold to make the foam product.

Aesthetically Pleasing EVA Foam develops a perfect mold finish upon completion, the process creates parts with great aesthetics, and the quality is always consistent. And even though EVA Foam products are more expensive than other types of foam production, the result is always an attractive product with long-lasting value which is less likely to deteriorate over time.

Structural molding shares some similarities with injection molding, but these are the main differences between the two processes:

The plastic prototyping, modeling and “bridge-to-production” tooling technology is rapidly changing. Texas Injection Molding maintains in-house and an outside network of industry leading providers to deliver our customers a broad range of material, size and processes to model and replicate performance as close as possible to production units. We offer concept review, design consultancy, material selection, prototype and low volume production for projects that are planned to increase to volume production.

Polyurethane is a polymer that is available in thermosetting (does not melt when heated) and thermoplastic (melts when heated) versions.

One important feature of CFAs is their ability to be processed on all injection molding machines, if you know what you are doing. In order to obtain a uniform foam structure, the CFAs injection rate requires special attention.

Overview: Machining is a subtractive process where we start with a solid block of material and remove material to leave a finished part. Machining allows for use of specific grades of plastics or metals that are not available for printing.

EVA foam is non-toxic and easy to work with. It has some of the properties of a low-density polyethylene with increased gloss, softness and flexibility. It’s also weather resilient; with resistance to UV radiation, low temperatures, good impermeability and high stress-crack resistance. There are both filled and unfilled EVA products. Keep reading

We understand the requirements of high-volume manufacturing and offer design for manufacturing experience to ensure cost effective manufacturable products as products are delivered from prototype to high volume production.

The foam made from it is closed-cell and waterproof, its cells are tightly connected, giving the CFAs are typically used when trying to achieve higher density foams and they can improve the quality of the final product immensely. They are often used for the production of strong, yet lightweight structural foam moldings. As well as the extra strength, — depending on the shape of the mold – CFAs will also save you money, since thicker walls make it easier for the foam to form. You can generally expect a reduction of 10 to 25% of the weight, or even more with a well-formed design.

Overview: Fused Deposition Modeling is a low-cost prototyping process that allows for mechanically strong parts to be created.

Polystyrene is a synthetic compound, that can be solid or foamed. It is made from monomer styrene and is considered and aromatic polymer. It is one of the best materials that could possibly be used for foam injection molding.

Rapid Prototyping is an additive manufacturing technology and comprises of techniques that can speed up the time it takes to fabricate a prototype with flexibility. It all starts with a design from modeling or CAD software. And then with 3D printing we can interpret the CAD data and create the 3D model.

Materials Used & Part Characteristics: Photopolymer (UVcurable) epoxy or acrylic-base materials are used to manufacture fine resolution cosmetic parts.

You can add CFAs to the injection molding machine just as if they were colorants or additives. CFAs can also allow for an increase in shot speeds and can reduce clamp tonnage, achieving a reduction that can be as high as 30% in cycle and production times. Pretty amazing benefits from using just one simple additive!

If you haven’t noticed, it is highly unlikely that a day comes by without you seeing some sort of polymer foam, they are being used everywhere with an incredible array of applications. You may ask yourself why are they everywhere?

The foam made from it is closed-cell and waterproof, its cells are tightly connected, giving the foam a high tensile strength and making it strong and durable.The main benefit of injection molded foam is that its cycle is way faster; the foam and product are both manufactured simultaneously, as this process doesn’t require die-cutting or compression molding. Also, given its really high expansion rate, the products manufactured are self-skinning, meaning that they have a great reproduction of surface detail.

Materials Used & Part Characteristics: FDM is noted for it wide range of material options.Some of the major materials include ABS, PLA, Nylon (PA6 / PA 66), PETG and TPU materials are melted and extruded in round layers to build up parts. Because the extrusion is round, sharp corners and other fine features are limited.

J-CAD has a long-standing positive experience of close to a decade in foam injection molding. All of our products are of superior quality. Our experience coupled with recent technological improvements has enabled us to develop our own advanced structural foam injection molding system that produces products of ultra high quality.

Also known as polyethene, polyethylene is the most commonly found plastic around the globe, with annual production being around 80 million tonnes.

This type of resin can also be colored with a variety of additives and is very resistant to most chemicals. This allows products to be suitable for lots of uses. Keep reading

Where used: Often used in creating fixtures due to low cost and strong mechanical strength. Also used in early stage prototypes or concept models.

When working with lower pressure, there’s the benefit of being able to use more economical molding equipment, for this reason, it is cheaper to do mass production of larger, thicker parts by structural molding, than conventional injection molding. And you can expect the finished part to be typically 10 to 30% under the weight of an equivalent conventional injection molded part.

Thickness variation EVA Foam injection molded parts can be made to any height or width, they aren’t limited by the process. There’s no need for lamination.

Overview: 3D Scanning or 3D Imaging is a process where the digital shape an object can be measured with non-contact imaging systems. 3D laser scanners collect millions of data points in three dimensional space called a point cloud. This method provides extremely accurate measurements of these points in X, Y, Z positions. The resulting digital image can be drafted or modeled in CAD systems to create a model that can be reproduced or edited to the desired geometry. 3D scanning is very useful in reverse engineering where legacy parts produced prior to digital technology or parts with no CAD model can be created and used for documentation, modeling, 3D printing, production tooling, or quality inspection.

EVA, or ethylene-vinyl acetate foam is a soft and durable polymer processed as a thermoplastic material, commonly used in flooring and sports equipment due to it being highly cushioning and sponge-like.