Military components must withstand harsh conditions without failing. On the battlefield, a malfunctioning device might be the difference between life and death for our military family.
Fortunately, you can use plastic injection molding for military applications like battery packs, weaponry, munitions, and decoys. Plastic injection molding ensures you get military-grade equipment that endures severe combat-zone conditions and offers you substantial longevity.
This piece discusses the manufacturing demands of the military component industry and why plastic injection molding is fast becoming mainstream across various military applications.
Manufacturing military components is a hypersensitive process that directly impacts national security. That’s why the U.S. Department of State established the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to oversee the manufacturing, exporting, and trading of military components and devices.
Being an ITAR-registered manufacturer, Crescent Industries understands the exceptional demands of military component manufacturing. In all our military injection molding projects, we guarantee durability, reliability, and repeatability.
Let’s discuss some of the military's top plastic injection molding applications.
Hand-Held Communication Devices
Hand-held, Manpack, and Small Form Fit (HMS) components facilitate real-time communication between dismounted troops and command centers. These devices use complex printed circuit boards that can be easily damaged if exposed to harsh weather conditions such as excessive moisture and heat.
Also, contacts for charging these battery backs and handheld devices can use the process of insert molding. Therefore, an injection molder partner skilled at manufacturing these inserts and performing an insert molding process is necessary. Plastic injection molding creates durable, weather-proof casings that protect HMS devices in harsh environments, ensuring they function optimally at all times.
Binocular & Monocular Housings
Binocular and monocular scopes are essential in military operations for optical enhancement. Soldiers often attach a monocular scope to their rifles to enhance long-range shooting accuracy. Additionally, soldiers use night vision binoculars to improve their vision in low-light environments.
These costly night vision binoculars and monocular scopes are exposed to harsh environments where they can easily sustain damage. However, with advanced plastic injection molding technology, weather-resistant binocular and monocular housings can be manufactured. These housings protect your monocular scopes and night vision goggles from environmental damage and absorb shocks from falls and wobbles.
Weaponry
Traditionally, most military weapons were made from metal, making them bulky and expensive to assemble. But as plastic has gained more utility in military weapon manufacturing, weaponry components are lighter and abrasion-resistant. As a result, plastic is now used to manufacture a range of high-precision weapon parts.
Decoys
Decoys play a critical role in military deception to bluff enemy observers. Manufacturing the decoy components or devices using plastic injection molding is faster and more cost-effective. Additionally, plastic injection molding boosts product repeatability and reliability, facilitating the quick manufacturing of decoy components on a large scale.
There are many reasons injection-molded plastic parts are gaining mainstream use in defense and military component manufacturing. The most potent benefits include the following:
A Wide Array of Plastics Available for Injection Molding
Some of the primary plastics compatible with military applications include:
Because these plastics have unique properties, they’re used for molding different military components. For instance, PVC is rigid, flexible, and flame-resistant, whereas polycarbonate material is used for dimensional stability.
Plastics Are Lightweight
Soldiers carry loads of gear during combat, from water and food supplies to utilities such as rechargeable batteries and munitions. It’s mission-critical for soldiers to have the required equipment, but with less weight. Thus, the injection molding of military applications that were once made of metal makes them lightweight and boosts troop mobility.
Flexibility In Design for Manufacturability (DFM)
Innovative plastic injection molding techniques, such as insert molding and over-molding, provide ergonomic benefits and a more significant customization margin for high-precision and specialized equipment.
Additionally, if you need robust parts with bolstered corners or higher vibration-damage protection, over-molding enables you to add extra features to satisfy your desired mil-spec.
Durability and Dependability
Every day, military components, from small to large, must be reliable and sturdy to withstand rough operational conditions and work optimally. With plastic injection molding, you can be confident that all your products meet or exceed expected standards.
Crescent Industries is the top-rated, seasoned manufacturing partner for military and defense molding services. Our experience manufacturing defense products goes back to WWII, when we were trusted to make gun turret castings and helm column castings for the famous PT gunboats.
Since then, we have enhanced our manufacturing proficiency and invested in state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities to take on bigger and more complex military component manufacturing projects.
We are ITAR registered, compliant with NIST regulations for cybersecurity, and working toward CMMC certification.
As an employee-owned company, we take enormous pride in our injection molding projects, especially molding military components.
Contact us today to discuss your military specifications for your plastic injection molding projects.