Extrusion

Date, Time & Instructors

The date and times for this seminar are Monday, July 20 - Wednesday, July 22 (3 days) from 8:30am-5:00pm (This includes breaks. Light breakfast, lunch and snack will be provided with no additional charge during breaks).

This seminar is co-taught by Dr. Carol Barry and Dr. Anne Soucy.

Overview

This seminar offers comprehensive coverage of the extrusion of polymeric materials. It is intended for individuals who have little or no background in the extrusion process or for those who have been using single screw extruders and want to gain a thorough understanding of the interrelationships between the polymeric materials, the equipment and processing variables. Lectures discuss the significant characteristics of polymeric materials and their effect on the extrusion process. Single screw extruders and their components, equipment specifications, instrumentation, and screw geometry are discussed. Operational principles including solids conveying, plastication, mixing and pressure generation of single screw extruders are explained. Specific extrusion processes including blown and flat film, tube and pipe, profiles, extrusion coating and foam extrusion are discussed and expanded upon if requested by participants. Troubleshooting techniques and operational strategies are covered.

Content

Characteristics of Polymeric Materials

• Molecular weight; molecular weight distribution; properties of bulk materials; polymer rheological properties; thermal properties

Types of Extruders

• Brief comparison of single screw extruders with co-rotating and counter-rotating twin screw extruders

Extruder Components

Operational Characteristics

• Zonal distribution & function; solids conveying principles; melting theories; conveying & pressure generation; screw characteristic curves; screw design principles; conveying, melting, mixing, venting & pressure generation; extruder output calculations; basic demands of production

Extrusion Processes

• Includes a discussion of dies, downstream equipment, and major controls.
• Blown & flat film; tube & pipe; profiles; extrusion coating; wire coating; foam extrusion; fiber spinning; coextrusion

Troubleshooting Techniques

• Most of the afternoons will be spent in the Plastics Process Engineering Labs with hands-on experience in start-up, shutdown and troubleshooting single- and twin-screw extrusion operations. Demonstrated extrusion processes: blown film, flat film, tubes & pipes, and twin-screw extruders.

About the Instructors

Dr. Carol Forance Barry is a Professor of Plastics Engineering. After 12 years in industry, she returned to school to earn a D.Eng. Plastics Engineering. She then joined the Plastics Engineering faculty. Her research focus is plastics processing, including extrusion, injection molding, and novel processing techniques. Recent work has focused on including compounding and forming of polymer and rubber nanocomposites, coextrusion of multilayer films, injection molding and embossing of micro and nanostructured surfaces, evaluation of novelty melt compounding equipment, and processing of biodegradable polymers. She has over 300 publications.

Dr. Anne Soucy is an Assistant Teaching Professor and the Associate Chair for the Plastics Engineering undergraduate degree program at UMass Lowell, where she earned a bachelor's degree and a doctoral degree in Plastics Engineering. Prior to joining the UMass Lowell faculty, she was a faculty member in the departments of Plastics & Polymer Engineering Technology and Engineering Design Technology at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. Courses she has taught include blow molding, rotational molding, product and mold design for injection molding, Moldflow®, 2D CAD applications, print reading, and 3D parametric solid modeling. She has also taught injection molding and product design for injection molding industrial seminars.

Additional Notes

Email notifications

Upon registering, you will receive an automated confirmation email from Canvas Catalog with an email address of notifications@instructure.com. Please ensure that you are able to receive emails from this address, and please remember to check your junk and/or spam folders. This email address is unmonitored.

Additional notifications and important information regarding this seminar may be sent from Corporate_Education@uml.edu and/or other University email addresses ending in @uml.edu. Please contact Corporate_Education@uml.edu if questions or concerns arise regarding this seminar.

We recommend adding notifications@instructure.com and Corporate_Education@uml.edu to your email software's safe-sender list to ensure our emails reach your inbox. Instructions for Microsoft Outlook.

Location

This is an in-person seminar held at UMass Lowell's North Campus in Lowell, Massachusetts.