A thermoforming press is used to form thin plastic sheet into shapes for end uses such as packaging. S.E.A. was contracted by a thermoforming machine manufacturer to design the forming, trimming and scrap-winding stations of a new machine and to assist with heater and indexer system design. 

 

The new product is a servo-driven, plug-assist machine with separate heating, forming, trimming, stacking and scrap-winding stations. The design was completely done using 3D parametric modeling which allowed  the use of finite element analysis on critical components and the use of 3D dynamic analysis on the drive train so that the optimum servo drives could be selected. Typical tasks involved in the project were: