A mould refers to various tools used in industry to obtain required products through methods such as injection moulding, blow moulding, extrusion, die casting, forging, smelting, and stamping.
Automotive moulds are the general term for all automotive parts moulds. Over 95% of automotive parts are manufactured using automotive moulds, including automotive interior moulds, automotive exterior moulds, automotive covering part moulds, and structural part moulds. According to different forming methods, automotive moulds can be divided into automotive stamping moulds, automotive injection moulds, automotive casting moulds, and automotive forging moulds. Among them, injection moulds are one of the indispensable key components in modern automobile manufacturing.
Automotive parts moulds come in various types, mainly including automotive interior moulds, automotive exterior moulds, and automotive covering part moulds. Typically, an injection mould consists of a mould mechanism, an injection system, a cooling system, and an exhaust system. The technological feature of injection moulding is that plastic raw materials are placed in the heating cylinder of an injection moulding machine, melted by heating, then pushed by the screw or plunger of the injection moulding machine, and enter the mould cavity through the nozzle and the gating system of the mould. After multiple steps such as heat preservation, pressure maintaining, and cooling, they are finally solidified and formed in the mould. Due to the phased heating and pressurizing method adopted in injection moulding, it can adapt to the forming of complex-shaped plastic parts, and has the advantages of high production efficiency and good quality. Therefore, injection moulding accounts for a large proportion in the forming of plastic parts, and injection moulds also account for more than half of plastic forming moulds.
The industrial chain of automotive injection moulds: The upstream mainly includes raw materials such as mould steel, plastic particles, aluminium materials, and hot runners, accounting for more than 40% of the total mould cost. The industry is located in the upstream of the entire automotive industry chain, mainly producing plastic products and supplying them to auto parts enterprises to meet the needs of automotive interior systems (such as instrument panels, auxiliary instrument panels, door panels, pillar guards, etc.), automotive exterior systems (such as bumpers, grilles, spoilers, etc.), and automotive air-conditioning filtering systems (such as air-conditioning housings, air-conditioning dampers, intake manifolds, etc.).
Automobile production is highly dependent on automotive moulds. Over 95% of parts in automobile production need to be formed by moulds. Manufacturing an ordinary car requires more than 300 sets of plastic moulds, and about 90% of automotive interior and exterior plastic parts are produced through plastic moulds. The material and technological level of interior and exterior parts often determine the grade of a car and serve as an important carrier for the positioning of mid-to-high-end passenger vehicle markets.
