Design for Injection Moulding Machines Past and Present

The first injection moulding machine was developed by American inventor John Wesley Hyatt in 1868. Four years later, Hyatt received a patent for his innovative design that allowed heated plastic to be "injected" through a hot cylinder into a steel mould.

Though his original machine bears little resemblance to the huge industrial units that are employed today, the process has not changed all that much in more than a hundred and forty years; and many popular products like hair combs and buttons that were produced by machines in Hyatt’s time are still manufactured by machines today. Of course, the process is much quicker and more efficient nowadays. A modern injection moulding machine can produce thousands of products an hour without missing a beat.

When we look at the long history of this interesting machine, amazingly we discover that it did not truly become popular until the Second World War when time and necessity created an overwhelming demand for cheap, mass-produced plastic products. And as demand increased, the design for injection moulding was revised several times to allow for greater speed and higher quality products.

Today the machines are used to produce everything from toys to imitation jewellery to medical and automotive parts. In fact, the complexity of the products that are now produced by injection moulding machines is perhaps the biggest difference from the early machines that could only mass-produce simple products like combs and buttons.

Injection moulding has long been the most popular and cost effective way to manufacturing plastic parts for major sectors of the economy, like the automotive industry. Though the process is relatively inexpensive when it gets up and running, high initial investment costs in machinery and mold designs are the most notable disadvantages of the process.