Chances are you rarely think about vacuum forming. You rarely think of vacuums, and even then it’s typically against your will. After all, who likes vacuuming? But if you put the two words vacuum and forming together, you get something that makes an undeniable impact on our lives every day, and that’s not an exaggeration.

Vacuum forming, which is also commonly referred to as vacuuforming, is a simpler (and often more cost effective) method of thermoforming. Therefore, to understand vacuum forming, it might help to also understand its more complex older brother, thermoforming.

Thermoforming is a popular manufacturing process where a plastic sheet is heated to a temperature that makes it moldable and then stretched or formed to a specific shape (usually in a mold). Finally, it is cooled, trimmed, and cut to create a usable product.

In vacuum forming, the plastic sheet is held against the given mold by taking advantage of a vacuum that’s created between the mold and the sheet. This process is used daily to create products ranging in complexity from simple product packaging and plastic components to larger plastic components for the consumer electronics and automobile industries, just to name a few.

In most cases, vacuum forming is used to produce the thin plastic products that tend to be relatively shallow. We typically come into contact with these materials every day, such as the product casings found in just about every store or the blister packages used to contain and protect doses of pharmaceuticals. However, vacuforming can also be used to produce thicker objects.

While “thin sheet” vacuforming is more common, “thick sheet” vacuum forming is used to produce objects such as protective covers and encasings for medical instrumentation, automotive coverings, bathware, home décor, and appliance coverings. These deep parts can be vacuum formed if the formed sheet can be mechanically stretched before it meets the mold and before the vacuum pressure is initiated.
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