processing tips
How to Keep Moisture Away From Your APET Sheet Line
Moisture in PET will result in degradation that will foul up sheet and thermoformed products. Keep it at bay by following these tips when drying APET virgin and flake material.
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Extrusion: How to Adjust for Polymer Shrinkage and Orientation
Polymers shrink and orient. Sometimes orientation is unbalanced, resulting in misshaped parts. But there are steps beyond tweaking the die that can mitigate these effects.
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MATERIALS: The Problems With Single-Point Data
Polymer properties are not constant as a function of temperature, and even small temperature changes can affect properties.
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From Extruder to Pelletizer: What Happens in Between Influences Quality
There’s a lot more to strand pelletizing than dunking material in water and hoping for the best. Here’s some advice on taking out some of the guesswork.
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Troubleshooting Material Burning In Hot-Runner Systems
Burns in hot runners can be misleading and hard to diagnose correctly. Follow these tips to track down the root cause of your problem.
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EXTRUSION: Another Technique for Controlling Melt Temperature
Flight widths are almost always designed at 10% of the screw diameter. But they can be optimized to reduce melt temperature and perhaps boost output.
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MATERIALS: The Problems with Single-Point Data
Engineers who are used to working with metals are surprised that plastics cannot operate as close to their yield points as can metals. The yield point is not enough to tell you how the material reacts to stress.
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Keep Your Screen Changer In the Flow
The screen changer plays an essential role in generating quality extrudate. Here’s what you need to know to keep it functioning properly.
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EXTRUSION: Cooling: The Critical Function in Extrusion
Figuring out how much cooling your process needs is complicated. But there are ways to approximate.
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INJECTION MOLDING: How to Specify an Injection Molding Machine
With the market percolating, more molders are looking at new presses. This series will discuss what you should consider before writing a check, beginning with the clamping unit.
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