Engineers are looking for ways to boost value and gain business. One example comes from Mazda, which is leveraging a plastic foaming process developed at MIT. Mazda’s injection molding process cuts part weight 20 to 30 percent by mixing supercritical fluid with plastic resin, such as nylon, in the injection barrel. The SCF causes the melt to expand rapidly when injected into a mold, requiring less resin. After initial injection, the mold core is precisely retracted, creating an outer layer with microscopic bubbles that ensure each part has the necessary strength and rigidity. The size of the bubbles in the core layer are adjusted to reduce density as desired, thus allowing control of the resin savings. Mazda says the technique can be used on most plastic car parts, and will be introduced on 2011 models.Mazda’s initial announcement called the technology proprietary, and Mazda has in fact been awarded patents for the development. Mazda, however, neglected to mention that the microcellular foam technology was developed at MIT and licensed to a Massachusetts company called Trexel. More than 300 molding machines use the SCF technology. Eighty-five discrete components have already been developed for use in cars, Trexel President David Bernstein told me in a recent meeting in Woburn, MA. MuCell works best with semi-crystalline engineering resins.
Mazda apparently did develop the concept of using core-back or “expansion” molding with the process, a brilliant idea. Trexel and Engel will be showing their approach to core-back molding at the National Plastics Exposition in Chicago June 22-26.
I’ll be posting more ideas on microcellular foam here at www.designnews.com, and writing articles for the print edition as well. One big issue I’ll explore is how the microcellular foam process can improve component properties.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
The 100-percent solar-powered Solar Impulse plane flies on a piloted, cross-country flight this summer over the US as a prelude to the longer, round-the-world flight by its successor aircraft planned for 2015.
GE Aviation expects to chop off about 25 percent of the total 3D printing time of metallic production components for its LEAP Turbofan engine, using in-process inspection. That's pretty amazing, considering how slow additive manufacturing (AM) build times usually are.
A $1,500, hand-operated, bench-model, plastic injection machine crowdsource-funded via Kickstarter can be used to mold small, quality, plastic parts inexpensively, on demand.
The federal government is launching competitions to kickstart three more manufacturing innovation institutes, including one focused on Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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