Design by Glenn Beall

This is a series of articles that present a proven method for designing injection molded plastic parts and products.  The author is Glenn Beall, one of the founders of SPE’s Product Design and Development Division.  He has been designing and developing plastic products for more than fifty years. 

The Industry literature, coupled with a lot of trial and error, and many years of experience have allowed Glenn to evolve a relatively simple but reliable method for designing injection molded plastic parts.  Mr. Beall distributed this information in a series of one day seminars attended by more than 7,700 plastics industry professionals.  The Design Guidelines from that seminar were published in Injection Molding Magazine between February 1994 and October 2001.  These Design Guidelines were also incorporated into a fully interactive video course for Paulson Training Programs, Inc.  We are fortunate in that Mr. Beall has agreed to update this information and share it with a new generation of designers via SPE’s Product Design and Development Divisions Newsletter and website.

Albert McGovern, Chair, SPE Product Design and Development

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April 30, 2016

Plastic Part Design for Economical Injection Molding

It is difficult to imagine, but there was a time when there no man-made plastic-materials, and no injection molding process. The first man-made plastic was cellulose nitrate (celluloid) discovered by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868. This was followed by Leo H. Baekeland’s 1907 invention of phenol formaldehyde (Bakelite). Celluloid was readily colorable. It found wide usage as a substitute material for all kinds of consumer products. Large markets developed for pigmented sheet stock and transparent celluloid in photographic films and cellophane packaging applications.

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