Designing for Hot Plate Welding

Hot Plate Weld Strength:

The hot plate welding process produces a welded joint which, in many cases, yields a weld strength that is consistently equal to or stronger than any other area of the part. As a result, the weld area can most often be exposed to the same strains and stresses as any other area of the part.

Common Hot Plate Welded Materials:

  • Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS-Cycolac)
  • Acrylic-Styrene-Acrylonitrile (ASA-Geloy)
  • PolyOxy-Methylene (POM-Acetal & Delrin)
  • PolyAmide (PA-Nylon & Zytel)
  • PolyButylene Terephthalate (PBT-Valox & Enduran)
  • PolyCarbonate (PC-Lexan & Makrolon)
  • PolyCarbonate / Acrylonitrile- Butadiene- Styrene (PC/ABS-Cycoloy & Bayblend)
  • PolyCarbonate/ PolyButylene Terphthalate (PC/PBT-Xenoy)
  • PolyCarbonate/ PolyEthylene Terephthalate (PC/PET-Xylex & Makroblend)
  • PolyEthylene (PE)
  • PolyEthylene Terephthalate (PET-Polyester)
  • PolyMethyl MethAcrylate (PMMA-Acrylic & Lucite)
  • PolyPhenylene Oxide (PPO-Noryl)
  • PolyPhenylene Sulfide (PPS-Ryton)
  • PolyPropylene (PP)
  • PolyStyrene (PS)
  • PolySulfone (PSO-Udel)
  • PolyVinyl Chloride (PVC-Vinyl)
  • PVDF (PolyVinylidene Fluoride (PVDF-Kynar)
  • Thermo-Plastic Elastomers (TPE-Santoprene)

Hot Plate Welding Joint Designs:

Hot Plate Welding Joint Designs:
Typical total material displacement is 0.060". The 0.030" material displacement per side includes 0.015" for material and 0.015" for seal. This may vary depending on part material, geometry, and molded part flatness.  We strongly recommend discussing your joint design with one of our application engineers before arriving at your final part design.

Other Hot Plate Welding Design Considerations:

  • Joint areas requiring high strength/hermeticity must be supported by tooling.  Flanges protruding outward from outer part walls are highly recommended in areas of high strength requirements.
  • Allow for sufficient flash/beading.  A minimum of 0.030” of part height material will be displaced from the joint during each weld.
  • Material choice will largely determine overall cycle time and maintenance required. 
  • Contours in excess of 45 degrees from a flat plane will not bond adequately in most cases due to lack of ability to compress the joint area.
  • For horizontal machines where upper part half pick-up is desired, the part halves will require alignment features to self locate if possible.  Otherwise, costly alignment features must be added to the tooling.