Plastic Mold Steels

Plastic mold steel refers to special steel used to make molds for plastic products. With the increasing demand for plastic products, plastic mold steel plays an important role in the plastic product industry.

Plastic mold steel is a kind of steel specially used to make molds for plastic products. It has good machinability, heat treatment performance and wear resistance, as well as high hardness, high toughness and high heat resistance. In the production process of plastic products, plastic raw materials need to be processed into products of different shapes and specifications through molds, and plastic mold steel is developed and applied to meet this demand.

Characteristics of plastic mold steel round steel
1. Steel for plastic molds covers a wide range, ranging from ordinary steel to special steel. This is more obvious in the early days of plastic molds, and now it has become more formal and advanced. Special steel has its own system. The chemical composition of mold steel is basically the same as that of alloy tool steel, but its metallurgical quality is higher and its processing is excellent, which is beneficial to heat treatment.
2. The performance requirements of plastic mold steel are strict, and the heat treatment is difficult.
3. In order to avoid deformation or other heat treatment problems of mold parts during the strengthening and toughening process, it is more common for mold steel to be supplied to the market in the form of pre-hardening.
4. Plastic products made of petrochemical products have different degrees of corrosion, so corrosion-resistant steel is also widely used.
5. With the application of pre-hardened steel and non-quenched and tempered steel, easy cutting is also a characteristic of plastic mold steel

Plastic mold steel has a wide range of applications in the plastic product industry.
It is widely used in daily life, such as plastic furniture, plastic toys, plastic containers, etc. The manufacturing process of these products is inseparable from the application of plastic mold steel.
Plastic mold steel has also been widely used in industrial fields such as automobiles, electronics, and home appliances. For example, in the automobile manufacturing process, it is necessary to use plastic mold steel to manufacture plastic parts for the exterior and interior of the automobile, as well as plastic products such as automobile lamps and control panels.
Plastic mold steel also plays an important role in construction, medical equipment, packaging and other industries.
1. Develop materials that are easy to process and have good polishing properties
With the production of precision parts such as optical discs, magnetic disks, and prisms, the requirements for easy-to-process mirror steels have increased. This kind of steel contains less non-metallic impurities, fine and uniform metallographic structure, and no fiber directionality. It is the main development direction of plastic mold steel.
2. Corrosion-resistant steel
Molds are prone to rust and corrosion during long-term operation and maintenance, and with the addition of various ingredients in plastic molding, molds are more likely to be corroded. Therefore, it is required to improve the corrosion resistance of the base metal body, and some corrosion-resistant stainless steel materials have been developed.
3. Maraging alloy steel
This kind of steel has sufficient mechanical properties and outstanding process properties, especially high strength, toughness, wear resistance, and low thermal expansion coefficient. It is a good steel for making injection molds, but it is expensive.
4. Carbide
It is mainly used to make molds with high life expectancy and large batch production of parts

In short, plastic mold steel as a special steel used to manufacture plastic product molds, plays an important role in the plastic product industry. It has good machinability, heat treatment performance and wear resistance, as well as high hardness, high toughness and high heat resistance. Plastic mold steel is widely used in daily life and industrial fields, providing reliable technical support for the production of plastic products. As the demand for plastic products increases, the application prospects of plastic mold steel will be broader.

The national standards for plastic mold steel may have different names and numbers in different countries. The following are the standard representatives of some common countries:

Chinese standard:
GB/T 1299-2014 "tool steel", GB/T 35840.2-2018 "plastic mold steel part 2: pre-hardened steel rod"
This standard applies to hot-rolled, forged, cold-drawn, silver-bright bar steel and machined delivery steel for tool and die steel, and its chemical composition is also applicable to ingots, billets and their products.

British Standard (BS):
BS EN ISO 4957:2018 Tool steels: This standard also applies to plastic tool steels.

American Standard (ASTM):
ASTM A681 Standard Specification for Tool Steels Alloy: This standard includes alloy tool steels suitable for various molds, including plastic mold steels.

Japanese Standard (JIS):
JIS G4404 Alloy Tool Steels: This standard covers alloy tool steels suitable for plastic molds.

In terms of plastic mold steel, due to the characteristics of the material, it is often necessary to consider factors such as wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and processing performance.