Liquid Silicone Rubber & Elastomer Part Design

LSR part and mold design: material behavior, medical-grade grades, cold-runner systems, flash and parting-line economics, LSR-over-thermoplastic overmolding, and the key/seal/skirt geometry that makes silicone parts work.

Private cohorts & on-site
Format: 2-day (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.)
Level: Intermediate-Advanced
Location: Scheduled on demand · on-site at your facility or a regional venue
Date(s): Not yet scheduled for open enrollment. Get notified when it is, or book it privately for your team.
Includes: Certificate of Completion · printed slide binder · take-home reference text

Get notified when this course is scheduled

One email when dates are set. Or skip the wait: run it as a private cohort, on-site at your plant.

Talk to us about a private cohort
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Faculty

Faculty details for this seminar will be announced with the full schedule.

Fees

Early: $1,895 (payment 4+ weeks ahead)
Standard: $2,095 (check/ACH) · $2,165 (card)

Group discount: $200 off per attendee for 3+ from the same organization.

Also Available

  • Corporate on-site delivery at your facility
  • Private cohort sessions
  • Digital curriculum licensing

Seminar Overview

LSR owns the seal, the soft key, the valve, the membrane — and it processes like nothing else in the plant: liquid injection, platinum-cure chemistry, cold runners, and flash economics that decide profitability. This seminar teaches LSR from the part designer's seat: material behavior (rheology, cure kinetics, post-cure shrinkage), medical-grade and food-grade grade selection, mold architecture (cold-runner systems, venting, parting-line strategy), and the part features — keys, seals, skirts, diaphragms, valves — that make silicone parts function.

The overmolding half covers LSR-over-thermoplastic: self-bonding grades vs. primers, the thermal window that makes or breaks the bond (silicone cures hot; the thermoplastic substrate must survive it), and the key/skirt designs that interlock where chemistry can't. Flash and parting-line economics close the loop: tear-trim vs. cryogenic deflashing, parting-line placement as a cost decision, and the tolerance reality of elastomer parts.

Segment demand: Advanced Input Systems (silicone-key HMIs), Ambu (valves/seals), the medical cluster's LSR components, plus connector seals across the E&E vertical — with the catalog's LSR coverage previously at absolute zero.

Ideal Learner

  • Design engineers specifying LSR keys, seals, valves, membranes
  • Mold designers building LSR tooling
  • Process engineers running LSI machines
  • Medical and consumer engineers with soft-component interfaces

Learning Objectives

  • Specify LSR grades: medical/food-grade requirements, cure system, post-cure shrinkage
  • Design keys, seals, diaphragms, and valves with functional geometry
  • Architect LSR molds: cold runners, venting, parting-line economics
  • Solve LSR-over-thermoplastic bonding: self-bond grades, thermal window, interlocks
  • Manage flash: tear-trim design, deflashing methods, tolerance honesty

Consulting Sessions

Seminar attendees can sign up for individual consulting sessions with the instructor. Sessions are free for registered attendees, first-come first-served — sign up when registering by calling 248-539-0473 or during the seminar.

Seminar Outline

  • Rheology and cure kinetics: why LSI machines exist
  • Shore A stacking and durometer honesty
  • Post-cure shrinkage and its tolerance consequences
  • Medical/food-grade grade selection
  • Keys and skirts: actuation-force design
  • Diaphragms and valves: flex-life and burst design
  • Seal geometry: compression, trap, and recovery
  • Draft, radii, and the elastomer parting-line art
  • Cold-runner systems and their economics
  • Venting silicone: the vacuum requirement
  • Parting-line placement as cost and quality decision
  • Tolerances on elastomer parts: what to promise
  • Self-bonding grades vs. primers vs. mechanical interlock
  • The thermal window: cure temp vs. substrate survival
  • Key/skirt interlock geometry that survives thermal cycling
  • Failure clinic: delamination, flash-bonded shut, short shots
  • Tear-trim parting-line design
  • Deflashing: cryogenic, dry, and their cost
  • Cycle-time economics of LSI vs. HCR alternatives
  • Workshop: design a medical valve LSR part

More in Track M — Regulated-Product Design

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