How Plastic Drums are made by Plastic Industries (+video)

How Plastic Drums are made

PVC drums otherwise known as plastic drums are wide and lengthy plastic containers used in storing of liquids. There are many designs of plastic drums depending on the intended purpose.

However, the most popular plastic drum usually has two cover caps at its top section. The caps serve as the inlet and outlet flow unit in the drum. Though one of the cap may be bigger than the other, the bigger cap serve the purpose of filling and pouring of liquid while the other smaller cap provide the pressure needed to pour out liquid from the drum. You will see such plastic drum in the chemical stores.

Though most popular plastic drum has two small openings that allow for filling and pouring out of liquids, there are other designs that have different cover or opening arrangement. 

The difference in designs doesn’t affect the drum material. In other words, plastic drums can have varying designs and sizes but they are all made with the same polymer material though the thickness may vary.

There all numerous designs obtainable in plastic drums from cylindrical shapes to rectangular shapes and even triangular shape depending on the intended application of the drum. The advanced manufacturing process of plastic drums yield to the making of giant water tanks use in homes and industries for the storing of water from the boreholes.

Though everyone makes use of plastic drums either directly or indirectly, little knowledge is known about its making. This post will give you the basic idea you need to understand how the plastic industries make plastic drums.

Though we have a video in this post showing the manufacturing process as exhibited by a company in China and made available to EngineeringAll team, we will go further to explain the overall manufacturing processes in the plastic industries.

HOW PLASTIC INDUSTRIES MANUFACTURE PLASTIC PRODUCTS

There are basically two ways plastic industries can use in the making of their product and each of the way depends on the product they intend to produce. This implies that giant plastic industries can have all the equipment and facilities that could help them to perform the two types of plastic products manufacturing process either at a time or one after another depending on the need.

Plastic industries can manufacture plastic products either through: Plastic Products Manufacturing Using the Injection Molding, or Plastic Products Manufacturing Using the Extrusion Molding

Let us discuss each of this manufacturing process in detail;

Plastic Products Manufacturing Using the Injection Molding

The injection molding process makes use of a plastic manufacturing machine known as injector machine. The machine melts the monomers, mixes all the necessary additives for the product, and injects the molten plastic into any mold fixed on its outlet.

The action will force the molten plastic to take the shape of the mold(s) fixed on the machine outlet and will cool and solidify in the mold(s) before it can be brought out and send to the finishing unit.

This process is using applied in the making of plastic products with irregular shapes such as plastic chairs, plastic buckets, and plastic machine parts, etc.

Plastic Products Manufacturing Using the Extrusion Molding

Plastic extrusion manufacturing process is handled by a machine known as plastic extruder or plastic extruding machine. It appears to be one of the simplest forms of plastic manufacturing of regular shape products such as plastic pipes, plastic drums, plastic trays, plastic rods, plastic sheets, and plastic roofing sheets, etc.

The method had been more cost effective and advanced to even handle some of the task that an injector machine could do.

Now you have known the difference in the methods use in making plastic products, here is a video showing you how a medium size rectangular shape plastic drum was made by a giant plastic firm in China.

Video of How Plastic Drums are made

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