innovation and creativity from concept through to manufacture . . . . . specialist rotational moulding expertise

Blow Moulding

Rota Design currently works with a number of product designers, specifiers and manufacturers with a variety of design applications utilising the blow moulding process.

Blow moulding is used to form simple hollow plastic components and has its roots in glass blowing.

A typical everyday application for the process is the high speed batch production of soft drinks bottles. Ingenious design of the blank provides the user with the possibility to produce the screwed neck and container base thicker and thus, stronger than the wall sides.

Some important design considerations include the material characteristics, the processing methods employed and the assembly and finishing procedures. From an environmental and safety point of view, the product life cycle and defined performance of the product are other critical elements of the design function.

The process is extremely fast but production capacity is dependent upon the deadtime incurred opening and closing the mould. Typical production rates are of the order of a few hundred up to thousands per hour.

The initial capital plant cost and the relatively high tooling cost coupled with limited tooling life (dependent upon quality of finish and shape etc.) makes the process appropriate to higher volume automated production requirements with batch sizes of 100,000 and upwards.