SPE Library
The SPE Library contains thousands of papers, presentations, journal briefs and recorded webinars from the best minds in the Plastics Industry. Spanning almost two decades, this collection of published research and development work in polymer science and plastics technology is a wealth of knowledge and information for anyone involved in plastics.
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Webinars
Failure Associated With Injection Molding
The injection molding process is one of the key characteristics that determines how a plastic part will perform in service. Manufacturers certainly attempt to avoid failure, but often unanticipated factors result in unexpected problems.
The chances for a successful application can be significantly increased through preventative measures, including appropriate material selection, proper mold design, and process development. Even when appropriate actions are taken, failures can still occur. The evaluation of these failures provides an opportunity for learning. By understanding how and why a plastic component is failed, steps can be taken to prevent future occurrences. Case Studies will be presented to illustrate failures associated with the deficiencies from the injection molding process.
The presented cases will illustrate how the failure analysis process was used to identify the failure mechanism as well as the primary factors responsible for the failures.
Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy in Failure & Compositional Analysis
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is a fundamental analytical technique for the analysis of organic materials. It provides critical information in the evaluation of polymeric materials, including material identification, contamination, and degradation. The webinar will present a fundamental understanding of the technique and the following topics will be covered:
Compensation of Plastics Professionals: Perspective, Trends, and Forecast
The program will look at salary trends and the factors that affect your money. Dennis will provide an overview of the past five years of employment in the plastics industry. Specifically, he will analyze the growth curve of compensation for roles in manufacturing, engineering, sales, supply chain, and general management.
The 9 Keys to Creating and Enhancing Relationships
Many of us are production oriented and not relationship oriented. Yet, we work in organizations where our ability to influence, collaborate, work on teams, and be effective is often determined by our ability to build a network of colleagues who we can trust and with who we enjoy working. Fortunately, even if relationships skills are not our passion, we can be really good at creating relationships that will improve our results and add to the organization’s sense of engagement and community. This session will provide both perspectives and actions that you can implement quickly.
ANTEC® 101 - Conveying Value to Management
Are you someone that fears going into your supervisor’s office to request permission to attend ANTEC®? Have you ever been greeted with a hasty “no way, your time is better spent in the lab” when asking for funding to travel to any conference? If so, this webinar is for you. In this webinar, Jason will guide you through several strategies that he has used over his career to not only obtain funding to attend ANTEC®, but to support other SPE initiatives along the way.
Introduction to Plastics
Plastics are the most versatile materials ever invented, and have become a universal material, used for everything from water bottles to wings on combat aircraft. Plastic materials display properties that are unique when compared to other materials and have contributed greatly to quality of our everyday life. At this moment, you are almost certain to be touching plastic. Yet, while plastics play such an important role, we do not always understand the fundamental concepts of their production, compounding, end properties, and use. If words such as polymer, thermoplastic, creep, amorphous, and modulus are outside your normal vocabulary, this presentation is for you. This webinar will provide people not extensively familiar with plastics an understanding of the basics. The usefulness of plastics is attributed to the fact that they provide a wide range of properties and can be changed into and products by relatively simple and inexpensive fabrication means. In order to take full advantage of these materials, it is important to have a clear understanding of their composition and elementary properties.
Biocompatibility of Raw Materials for Medical Devices
Starting with a biocompatible material is important for medical device manufacturers. However, regulation is pushing the manufacturer to ask for more information and more support from their suppliers. Biocompatibility on materials is critical to stay competitive and provide your clients with the needed information.
Topics covered include:
UV Effects on Plastics
If you work with plastic components that include outdoor exposure, then "Ultraviolet (UV) Effects on Plastic Materials" will provide you with information that will enhance your understanding of the interaction between UV radiation-based weathering and plastic resins, and help prevent premature failure. Topics covered during this session include an introduction to UV degradation and an explanation of the failure mechanism characteristic of UV radiation/plastic interaction. Case studies associated with UV radiation exposure will be presented.
You will learn…
A MultiDrive Rheo-DMA Platform for Extended Polymer Analysis
Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) is a well-established technique for characterizing mechanical properties of all kinds of materials, particularly polymers or polymer-based products such as thermoplastics, thermosets, elastomers, adhesives, paints and coatings, films and fibers, as well as composites. A new measuring device concept is introduced which combines an electronically commutated (EC) motor as rotational top drive and a moving magnet linear drive or another EC motor, as bottom drive to enable rheological measurements and DMA on one single device. The concept enables various modes of operation by using different combinations of the bottom drive. Besides working in the rheological modes such as separate motor transducer (SMT), combined motor transducer (CMT), counter-rotation and counter-oscillation the device is suitable to perform dynamic mechanical analysis in bending, tension, compression, and torsion.
DMA can provide quantitative and qualitative data regarding:
Viscoelastic moduli and damping
Material structure and morphology Relaxation behavior (Primary, secondary) Influence of fillers and fibers in polymers Crystallization/melting processes Curing behavior In this webinar, you will learn how DMA can be used to gain a better understanding of the viscoelastic and thermal properties of your material. The theoretical basics of DMA measurements will be covered along with the test methods and the information gained from those. Various DMA applications ranging from polymer plastics, rubbers to composites will be discussed and the flexibility and versatility of such a 2 in 1 device concept will be demonstrated for extended polymer characterization.
Plastic Failures Associated with Metal Fasteners
The need to secure plastic components is prevalent in the manufacture of assemblies in many industries. Joining plastic components to other plastic parts or metal parts often involves the use of mechanical fasteners, such as screws, inserts, or rivets. The joining of plastic parts is inherently more complicated than assembling two metal components because of the fundamental differences in physical properties, including strength, chemical resistance and susceptibility to creep and stress relaxation. Case Studies will be presented to illustrate failures associated with the interaction between plastic components and metal fasteners.
The presented cases will illustrate how the failure analysis process was used to identify the failure mechanism as well as the primary factors responsible for the failures. The cases depict representative failures involving varied designs and service conditions.
Fundamentals of U.S. Patent Law
This seminar will focus on fundamentals of U.S. patent law with applicability to medical plastics, medical devices and pharmaceutical technology. Issues considered will include: (1) what is patentable subject matter; (2) pros/cons of provisional patent applications; (3) novelty and non-obviousness; (4) sufficiency of disclosure to enable an invention; (5) the importance of providing “reasonable certainty” in patent claims to optimize claim scope (some interesting recent cases); (6) a primer on the U.S. first-to-file system; and (7) the relatively new “prior user rights” defense providing more security to trade secret holders.
Impact Failure of Plastics
While in service, plastic materials are subjected to many different types of mechanical stress. One common type of stress that is typically severe on plastics is rapid impact loading. The rate at which loading is applied, otherwise known as the strain rate, is a very important factor in the performance of a plastic component. Impact, together with snap fit assembly, and rapid pressurization are the most common forms of rapid loading or high strain rate mechanisms. The response of plastics to impact and the ability of a plastic part to withstand the stress through absorption of the applied energy is dependent on many aspects, including the material, design, processing and the service conditions. Topics covered as part of this presentation will include:
Impact loads are among the most challenging stresses that plastic component designers and manufactures must deal with. In many cases impact stress is not adequately accounted for. In may cases this leads to unnecessary premature or unexpected failure.
iMFLUX's Novel Low, Constant Pressure Molding Technology Overcomes Traditional Barriers to Achieving A Truly Sustainable, Circular Operation - Sponsored by SPE Recycling Division
One of the biggest challenges facing the plastics industry today, is the need for technology solutions that enable a Circular Economy. This is especially true for injection molded parts, where operational tradeoffs are often encountered when running many sustainable materials. iMFLUX, a wholly owned subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, offers a novel injection molding technology they refer to as the “Green Curve” which uses low, constant plastic pressure to fill an injection mold. Gene Altonen, iMFLUX’s CTO, will share how this new technology addresses the key challenges molders face to deliver truly sustainable, circular solutions for their customers. Examples will be provided illustrating how this new approach to molding offers the ability to efficiently run post-consumer recycle and composites, substantially reduce energy use, and enable more sustainable part designs and materials. iMFLUX is collaborating with machine makers, material suppliers, educators, mold designers, data platforms, and sustainability industry associations to enable molders to benefit from the unique advantages this new technology provides.”
Plastics & the Environment: Dispelling Popular Myths With Scientific Facts
In order to make wise decisions, we must start with facts. Unfortunately, plastics have been sentenced in the court of public opinion without facts or evidence. The public have turned against plastics based on nothing more than unsubstantiated social media posts and sensationalist journalism. As a career scientist, I decided it was time to go look for the facts. It took over a year to collect and read more than 400 peer-reviewed scientific publications. I discovered that virtually everything the public believe today is utterly untrue. This talk distills down the science around waste, litter, degradation, microplastics and more. You will be shocked to discover what the science tells us. Plus will be given free access to The Plastics Paradox book which explains how today’s policies are harming rather than helping the environment and what we should be doing instead. Developed for a Fortune 500 company who offered over $10,000 dollars, SPE members can access it for free. The first couple of chapter is available to the public at: plasticsparadox.com.
3D Printing with Polypropylene - From Prototypes to Production Parts
Join this webinar to learn more about HP's new polypropylene (PP) material enabled by BASF, and how Extol has leveraged HP's Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing technology and new PP material to help their customers decrease time to market through design validation efficiency. Key takeaways:
Improve Your Chromatography with Refractive Index
Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC) plays an essential role in determination of dispersity and molecular weight of polymers and complex molecules. Calibration is done using polymer solutions such as polystyrene in organic solvents, and uncertainties in preparation of the standard can often carry over to uncertain measurement results. This webinar from Anton Paar will focus on how you can minimize uncertainty — and expensive errors - with a fast, highly-precise refractive index measurement. After the webinar, you will have a better understanding of how a refractometer can improve your chromatography. Featured topics in this webinar will include:
Fractography in Plastics Failures
The goal of a failure analysis is to discern the mechanism and cause of the component failure - essentially to identify how and why the part broke. Fractography plays critical role in this, particularly in identifying the failure mode. Cracking occurs as a result of the exertion of stresses, both external and internal, on a component. Cracking is simply a stress relief mechanism in which the material is attempting to reach a lower energy state. Plastics fail through a disentanglement mechanism in which polymer chains slide past each other.
The features on the fracture surface are created based upon a number of parameters:
This is Not the Wild West: Sustainability Definitions, Standards, and Regulations
With continued interest in and development of sustainable plastics, it is clear that not everyone is working with the same lexicon. Terms such as 'degradable', 'bio-degradable', 'recyclable', and 'compostable' are subject to misunderstandings, misinterpretations, or outright fraudulent claims. This webinar will address how ASTM standards are being used to create a common understanding based on science and testing. We will also address the commonalities and differences among standards, certifications, and regulations. This webinar is part of SPE's ongoing "Sustainability & Plastics" series.
Free Form Injection Molding Technology
What is FreeForm Injection Molding?
Freeform Injection Molding is a complete reframing of printed injection molding tooling. Instead of aiming for the highest possible number of shots per tool, the technology is focused on delivering the highest possible versatility in terms of materials, and the geometrical freedom in design.
Understanding Wear of Plastics
Wear can be defined as damage to a solid surface caused by the removal or displacement of material through mechanical action associated with contact with a mating surface. Plastic components are used in a wide range of demanding applications in which they are subjected to surface damage and wear. These commonly include:
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