slope-logo

How We Innovated a Design and Built a Leak-Proof Valve at Low Cost

APPLICATION

General industry: Packaging

MATERIALS

LLDPE

HDPE

Stainless Steel Conical Spring

Silicon Gasket

MANUFACTURING PROCESSES

Plastic Injection Moulding

REQUIRED DIMENSION

Inner Dia :31.2± 0.03

TOLERANCES

General Tolerances

  • Linear ± 0.10 in
  • Angular ± 1
  • Surface roughness 64 rms

Critical Tolerances

  • Linear ± 0.05 in
  • Surface roughness 32 rms

Challenge

A South Africa-based packaging company approached OMPL to manufacture a leak-proof valve with a rubber flap for its dunnage airbags. The valve needed to meet the strict cargo policies and standards for packaging. They were looking for a manufacturer with strong design capability who could give shape to their idea as well as custom-build parts at a competitive price. OMPL fit the bill.

We worked closely with the client to ideate and developed the prototype in our in house design facility.

Solution

Our team began conceptualising a valve with a plastic body assembled with a rubber flap. The main goal was to avoid leakage. After building our first prototype mould, we found deep weld lines and shrinkage due to high wall thickness in the profile area and found leakage during leak testing. Our next task was to eliminate the issues we found in our first prototype.

Our engineers devised a solution by building a split mould (head and flange) to avoid shrinkage and weld lines. Further, both parts were joined through an ultra-sonic welding machine. By doing this, we made sure the prototype was 100 % leakproof.

The final outcome was a product that came to life with very few iterations and low production costs and successfully met the client's requirements and packaging standards.

Since then, we have worked with this client to develop other successful components for them.

artwork