Plastic Parts Failure Analysis
- Elements of a Successful Plastic Product
- Part Design
- Mold Design
- Material Selection
- Processing
- Principles of Plastic Part Design
- Nominal Walls
- Ribs and Other Projections
- Holes and Other Depressions
- Designing for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA)
- Design Properties versus Inherent Properties of Materials
- Mold Design Considerations
- Mold Steel Selection
- Managing Polymer Flow in the Mold – Runners and Gates
- Cavitation and the Effect on Balanced Flow
- The Economics of Cavitation
- Hot Runners versus Conventional Cold Runners
- Mold Temperature Control
- Draft Angles and Ejection
- Material Selection
- Defining the Application Environment: Time, Temperature, Stresses, Etc.
- Amorphous and Semi-Crystalline Polymers
- The Importance of Molecular Weight
- Structural Choices within a Polymer Family
- Property Modifiers and Additives
- Regulatory Considerations: UL, NSF, FDA
- Performance and Processability
- Establishing the Cost/Performance Balance
- Processing
- The Fundamentals of Polymer Flow
- The Effect of Material Structure on Sound Processing Decisions
- Machine Selection
- Process Control Strategies
- The Quest for Six Sigma
- Failure Analysis Tools
- Material Testing: Composition and Degradation
- Molecular Weight Evaluations
- Thermal Analysis: DSC, TGA, DMA, TMA
- Spectroscopy: FTIR, EDS, XPS, SIMS
- Microscopy: Cross Sections and Scanning Electron Microscopy
- Physical Property Evaluation – Your Part Is Not a Tensile Bar
- FEA and Its Relation to the Application Environment
- Advanced Characterization of Mechanical Properties
- The Failure Analysis Process
- Gathering Background Information
- Focusing on the Four Fundamentals of a Successful Product
- Conducting the Appropriate Evaluations
- Establishing Root Cause
- Fixing What Is Broken
- Understanding the Interactions of Multiple Causes
- The Role of Designs of Experiment
- The Cost/Benefit Analysis of Problem Solving
- Following Up
- Case Studies
- Course Wrap-up: Recap, Q/A, and Evaluations
