ABSTRACT
The heating process can be one of the most time-consuming steps in thermoforming. Although the scientist isolates heat transfer into three distinct phenomena—conduction, convection, and radiation—in practice they will mostly be concurrent. The differentiation between thin film and heavy sheet thermoforming is in no other processing step more evident than during the heating of the plastic. The peculiar physical properties of plastics dictate the appropriate selection to obtain the most efficient heating method.
