THERMOFORMING. FASTER CYCLES, HIGHER OUTPUT PORTEND YEARS AHEAD

Few processing areas have grown in speeds and productivity over the past 10 yr as thermoforming. Thanks to the systems approach, better heating and cooling techniques and use of pressure, this trend will continue into the 70's, perhaps not as dramatically but certainly to a significant degree. Technological advances in tooling, heating, cooling and platen speed are briefly disucssed. Survey of production cycles in the past, present and future for various thermoformed products, with introduction of multistation rotary systems as the most important factor affecting time cutting in a cycle time.