Engineering

Engineering

Material Answers provides engineering solutions to difficult and unique problems.

Material Answers executes conceptual and detailed designs of specialized equipment. Novel processing operations are designed through sound engineering on the basis of the fundamentals of machine design, fluid flow, and heat transfer.

Selected Projects

Optimization of Thermoforming

A polymer resin manufacturer needed to improve the processing robustness of their product in the hands of numerous customers with widely varying deep-draw thermoforming operations. We characterized the rheological behavior of the polymer under flow conditions typically used in thermoforming and utilized this information in a finite element simulation of a representative production process.

The Recirculating Screw Mixer

The recirculating screw mixer was invented and built for mixing of laboratory size samples (10 cc) in a well defined flow field. It has been used for compounding of blends and composites as well as flow visualization studies.

The Micro-RIM Machine

The micro-RIM machine was designed for laboratory scale investigations of the reaction injection molding process. With a shot size appropriate for injection into analytical equipment, it can be used for real-time exploration of RIM materials and processes.