To determine how much force the platen must hold, the process engineer will calculate using the following parameters:
The area of the finished part’s footprint.
The flow length, which is the distance from the gate of the mold to the furthest edge of the part.
The average wall thickness of the part.
The number of cavities in the mold.
These values are put into a formula that also takes into account a few other variables to yield the correct clamping force. These calculations used to be done by hand, with the aid of simple conversion charts. Now many molding programs can do them automatically.
