Objective The objective of this laboratory is to provide hands on experiences in an injection moulding process.

Introduction Injection moulding is the most important plastics manufacturing process; adopted in producing thermoplastic products in large quantities in single production time. The major components of an injection moulding machine are shown in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1: Typical injection moulding machine

Among the type of injection moulding products are bottle tops, sink plugs, childrens toys, containers, model kits, disposable razors and parts of cameras. It is also used to manufacture larger items such as dustbins and milk crates. Injection moulding used to be operated by people but highly controlled by a central processing unit.

The mould The mould is the special tool in injection molding, it is custom designed and fabricated for the given part to be produced. Basically, the mould for injection molding can be classified into the two-plate mould and the three-plate mould. The two-plate mould consists of two halves fastened to the two platens of the molding machines clamping unit. When the clamping unit is opened, the two mold halves open and the ejector pins push the part out of the mold cavity.