MFGT 142- Polymer Processing – 3.0 Units

Prerequisite: MFGT 41, Chemistry 51, Chemistry 52

Course Times: Lecture M, W 1:00 PM – 1:50 PM

Lab Th 2:00 PM – 4:50 PM

Office: Location- O’Connell 425 – Phone: 898-4977

Hours M 8:00 – 11:00 AM

W 8:00 – 10:00 AM

Course Objective: Provide students a thorough study of thermoplastic processing methods by investigating materials, equipment, process control, tooling, operations, and flow analysis computer programs.

Laboratory Objectives: Provide students a thorough knowledge of a plastics molding business, including areas such as set-up, operation, and maintenance of the lab molding machines, process control equipment, data acquisition, production costs, and computer software programs.

Textbook and Reference Books:

• Plastics- Materials and Processing, Strong, Prentice Hall, New Jersey 1999

• Understanding Extrusion, C. Rauwendaal, Hansers Publishers, Munich 1998

Fee: $5 fee paid by the 3^rd week of the semester or the student will be dropped.

Safety: Safety glasses with side shields must be purchased by the student and worn at all times in the lab. Failure to do so will result in the student being removed from the lab and being dropped from the class. The student must read, understand and follow all safety procedures at all times. If there are any questions about the process, operation, or safe handling of materials, the student must talk to the instructor.

Grading

1 Midterm exam 10%

1 Final exam 20%

Unannounced quizzes (2 quizzes) 10%

Lab Report (2 Lab Reports + notebook) 20%

Homework 10%

Polymer Manufacturing Paper (2 papers) 20%

Literature Review (4 papers) 10%

100%

Note: Grades will be reduced one letter grade for each day late on all assignments.

Reports (All reports will be typed and double spaced.)

• Each student works in a team to conduct experiments to identify a process window for extrusion and injection molding. Each student records data in a lab notebook to record material and manufacturing information during the lab experiments. The information will include polymer material data, equipment, experimental methods, experimental data, observations, and conclusions. The notebook will be graded in lab according to effectiveness and organization of the data. The format of the notebook will be provided in class.
• Each student group will complete a paper identifying a processing window for injection molding of engineering thermoplastics and extrusion of commodity thermoplastics. The format of the paper will be provided in class. The reports will include design of experiment analysis (DOE).

1. Process window for extrusion with DOE – Due Feb 28, 2000
2. Process window for injection with DOE – Due April 3, 2000

1. Technical Paper (Teams of up to 2 students)

1. Extrusion line of a Rice Straw - LDPE pipe line – Due Mar 6, 2000
2. Injection molding of a toothbrush – Due May 1, 2000

Further information will be provided in class. The paper will be 4 to 6 pages typed and double-spaced. It should include the following:

• Building layout
• Machine type and location
• Storage for resin materials, tooling, molded parts, scrap, supplies, and equipment
• Tooling type and costs
• Costs to produce a part including fixed and variable costs (Software will be provided to calculate part costs)
• Recommended manufacturing plan to achieve production rates, including number of operators, cycle time, total parts produced per year.

1. Literature Review– Due Date TBD

• Weekly report on a current article (1999 or 1998) concerning thermoplastic processing. Available resources include Modern Plastics, Plastics Technology, ANTEC Proceedings, Plastics Briefs, Journal of Polymer Engineering and Science. (2 to 3 pages typed and double spaced).
• Substitutions for article reviews can be made for plant trips to plastics companies or Presentations from guest speakers.

1. Article 1 – Due: Jan 31, 2000
2. Article 2 – Due: Feb 21, 2000
3. Article 3 – Due: March 13, 2000
4. Article 4 – Due: April 10, 2000