Taking care of a child is not as simple as it may seem. Right from feeding to taking them out of the house, parents or guardians have to suffer a lot. No matter how lightweight the child is, carrying him into arms for a long is next to impossible.
However, there are several ways to resolve the problem, and the invention of a stroller is a part of the same. Undoubtedly, a stroller adds excellent convenience to the family with kids, and lets parents roam their kids around without any hassle.
While the stroller is an integral part, only a handful of people understand how each part of this appliance is manufactured. Therefore, we have compiled a guide to introduce the production process.
This process is classified into several categories: injection molding, extrusion, blow molding, foaming, drip molding, plastic absorption, slush molding, compression molding, and film blowing. So, let’s get started.
1. Injection Molding
Check out the advantages and disadvantages of the Injection Molding Process here.
Advantages
- You can control the wall thickness distribution of the injection molding process by the injection mold to make the container more uniform.
- It also avoids the thinning issue that primarily occurs in the corner parts of the general blow molding products.
- With this process, the blanks designed by the injection can be blown into the blow molding mold to reduce the wastage of molding materials. It also saves trimming time.
Disadvantages
- This process generally uses two sets of injection and blow molding and hollow-core mold, making the process expensive.
- The temperature of the injection molding process is relatively high, owing to which the molding blanks in the injection mold take along to cool down. It extends the entire process while reducing the production efficiency.
- The blanks present in the injection molds feature higher internal stress; hence the change in the mold is susceptible to uneven cooling. It, in turn, increases the risk of stress cracking of polyolefin plastic containers.
- The positioning tolerance level of two pairs of mold is a bit high, increasing the cost of the mold.
- The production container has a limited shape and size, which might not be ideal for producing containers with handles.
2.Extrusion
Extrusion Molding refers to the method carried out for plastic, rubber, and fiber processing. It is the more beneficial feature of continuous production and can manufacture products based on the need for any length of bar, pipe, film, cable, plate, and monofilament.
Advantages
- Extrusion molding has high production efficiency and delivers high output per machine. If the machine has a 65mm diameter extrusion unit with the PVC production film, the annual output might reach more than 450t.
- It has massive applications, be it rubber, fiber, plastic, and others. The production of various plastic products, like thermoplastics and thermosetting, can be done with this method.
- The extruder is also used to produce calendering film and can produce a variety of press molding parts. The blow molding machine can manufacture hollow products.
- It is also used to manufacture tread, inner tubes, rubber tubes, and various complex section shape products.
- With this process, you can also manufacture hollow, solid, covered rubber and other semi-finished products.
- It can also be used for continuous mixing, plasticizing, and granulating filter rubber and raw rubber.
- The extruder is also beneficial in producing resin in petrochemical plants. It is used to remove the water from the resin and the extruder and finish mixing additives and modifiers in various resin grades.
- It requires less investment and produces more products. The equipment cost is also less while the commissioning process is more accessible and convenient. The machine covers a smaller area and has simple requirements.
Disadvantages
- It has low-quality denseness.
- The combination core and sheath of the equipment are relatively poor.
3.Blow Molding
It refers to the process of creating hollow objects made of plastic. Like other molding processes, it also requires heated, liquid material inserted into the mold forcefully under pressure.
Although Blow Molding is a new type of molding process, it leverages the properties of conventional glassblowing. There are several different types of blow molding, namely Extrusion Blow Molding (EBM) and Injection Stretch Blow Molding.
Extrusion Blow Molding works by extruding heated plastic into a parison. It is primarily used in the manufacturing industry owing to its ability to mass-produce a large volume of objects in identical shapes and sizes.
On the other hand, Injection Stretch Blow Molding is mainly used to manufacture plastic bottles.
Advantages
- It is a revolutionary form of technology and is widely used to meet consumers’ needs for plasticware.
- This process can manufacture various products and new designs for multiple uses, such as seat support for strollers, flower pots, toy wheels, and fuel tanks.
- It is less expensive than other types of molding. Blow Molding uses low-pressure levels, which reduces the machinery costs and makes it easier and cost-effective.
Disadvantages
- It greatly depends on petroleum to produce plastic products. Owing to this, technology has become an ongoing threat to the diminishing oil supply in the world.
- Blow Molding requires plenty of production methods and resources.
- It comes with limited uses as it is only used to manufacture hollow forms like bottles and plastic containers.
4.Foaming
While inflation is good, it is pretty expensive compared to other processes. Foam tires are noisy and less durable than others, and their resistance is also high. On the other hand, inflatable tires produce no noise and boast excellent shock absorption capability, small resistance, and high durability.
Foam tires are manufactured using foam plastic material tires with regular size and a change rate of less than 1%. Furthermore, they are chemically stable and anti-corrosive. Such tires are resistant to the organic solution, like strong acids and weak alkali corrosion.
These tires are light in weight and have more impact load absorption, heat and sound insulation, and material saving. Foam tires feature high strength, owing to the presence of bubbles. Hence, you don’t have to worry about puncturing the tire while using foam tires.
Yet another option is Pneumatic tires, also known as hollow tires. It refers to the inner cavity that needs to be packed with compressed gas to maintain the tire’s internal pressure. It has a tube and tubeless tires, and such tires have excellent cushioning and high shock absorption performance. The rolling resistance of these tires is low due to gas or liquid in the inner cavity.
Next comes EVA wheels, which are way better than other options; they are resistant to wear and tear high temperature, and fire. These tires are undoubtedly elastic and can reduce the vibration from the ground. Moreover, they boast shock absorption capability, owing to which several baby strollers’ exporters use it.
EVA tires have the same wear resistance as Rubber wheels, but they are light in weight, making rubber wheels the suitable choice. Both these wheels have pros and cons. Foam wheels have good chemical and shock resistance; however, their slip resistance is not as good as rubber wheels.
The rubber wheels used in baby strollers must have an excellent anti-slip effect to maintain a good balance. Moreover, these tires should have shock-absorption capability to ensure the baby’s security.
The market is currently divided into an inflatable wheel and a non-inflatable wheel. While both have their advantages and disadvantages, one must go for non-inflatable wheels, and there are many good reasons for it.
Since inflated tires feature inner tubes, they can easily burst in summers. Also, the specifications mentioned on the baby stroller do not match with the inner tube generate entity, making it a troublesome choice. Also, inflatable wheels are not explosion-proof and anti-tie; hence not recommended.
So, that’s all about it!! We will discuss drip molding, plastic absorption, slush molding, compression molding, and film blowing in the next post.