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About Reaction Injection Moulding
Materialise started in 1999 with its R.I.M. activity. In the meantime, we have developed a specialised Reaction Injection Moulding competence centre, expanding its knowledge daily.
We have developed extensive knowledge in automotive products, especially in interior trim.
Many well-known car manufacturers have found their way to Materialise, and more specifically to R.I.M. when they are in need of a small number of copies in polyurethane or large complex parts. They are very well aware of the advantages of this process. Apart from the low cost and the fast availability of the parts, R.I.M. is a flexible solution for re-ordering.
The technology
R.I.M. (Reaction Injection Moulding) is a technique to produce plastic parts by lowpressure injection of thermoset resins in moulds.
Different types of moulds are applicable, among which resin moulds are the most frequently used. Materialise focuses on small series moulds, built around a master part produced by rapid prototyping methods such as stereolithography or HSM.
Different moulds are used, depending on trade off series, size of the part and speed. We offer the following approaches in function of quantity.
1. Directly machined tools; no master needed
- Ureol tools (100-200 mouldings)
2. Master based tools
- Silicone tools (up to 25-50 shots)
- Hybrid tools (50-100 shots)
- Resin tools with fibre reinforcement (200-300 parts)
- Resin tools with aluminium backing (up to 300-1000 parts), dependent on part complexity, R.I.M. material
For large automotive parts (mostly) epoxy tools with fibre backing are used (instead of concrete backing), consisting of layers of resin charged with glass fibres. The primary advantage of this mould type is its low weight, meaning that large and very large moulds can be made which remain easy to handle.