Course Overview
Introduction to Polymers, Rigid & Semi-Rigid Plastics, Flexible Packaging, Design Basics for Plastics
Get to know polymers and plastics from their base elements to their most complex integrated applications. Polymers are designer products formed and formulated with specific attributes. They are a diverse and adaptable raw material
Course Details & Pricing
Virtual
May, 2021
TBC
Price
$600
$800
Learning objectives
- Polymer terminology
- Properties based on molecular structure & weight, density, polarity and thermal history
- Physical and barrier properties based on class of polymer
- Materials, processes and applications in moulding and sealing
- Applications of metalizing
- Closure applications
Who should attend?
- Everyone wishing to understand the role and potential for polymers in Consumer Goods Packaging
- Professionals in the areas of Purchasing, Sales & Marketing, Packaging, Design and Production
- Employees changing fields in packaging
- Employees new to the packaging industry
Course Topics
Introduction to Polymers
- Polymer raw material sources
- Polymer terminology, spelling and abbreviations
- Thermoset, and thermoplastic polymers
- Monomers, homopolymers and copolymers
Polymer Chemistry for Non-Chemists
- Factors influencing a polymer’s properties
- Properties related to molecular weight and polarity
- Polymers related to polymer crystallinity
- Tg Tm and properties imparted by thermal history
- Properties imparted by mechanical history
- Viscoelastic properties
Common Packaging Polymers
- Application properties and common applications of the polyethylene family
- Application properties and common applications of:
- polypropylene, polystyrene, poly(vinyl chloride)
- poly (ethylene terephthalate) and polyamide
- Application properties of polymers used as coatings
- Comments on sustainable and selected lesser used polymers
Property Comparisons
- Values provided are for establishing relative orders
- They do not refer to any specific product
- Many resins offered as polymers are actually copolymers
- Polymers may be heavily modified with additives
- No two polymer producers manufacture identical resins
- Therefore values for commercially available resins can vary significantly from the example values
Sheet and Film Extrustion
- Polymer extruders
- Single and multi-layer cast & blown film extrusion
- Film orientation
- Thermoforming plastic sheet
- Other profile extruded dimensional products
Flexible Packaging Laminates
- Why multi-layer construction
- Aluminum foils and aluminum vacuum metallizing
- Wet and drybond laminating techniques
- Extrusion coating and laminating
- Common heat seal materials
- Form-fill machines and pouch styles
- Specifying flexible packaging laminates
Injection Moulding Plastic
- Injection moulding: closures, dairy tubs, pails, pumps, jewel boxes, cosmetic containers and parts
- Extrusion-blow moulding: bottles, and other narrow-mouth containers, jars, box and drum liners, handleware, multi-layer containers
- Injection-blow moulding: bottle and other narrow-mouth containers, wide-mouth jars, precision finish containers
Blow Moulding Plastic
- Extrusion blow moulding process (EBM)
- Weld lines and wall thickness control
- Multilayer bottles
- Injection (IBM) and injection-stretch blow moulding (ISBM)
- EBM and IBM compared
Plastic Bottle Design Basics
- General Bottle Design Elements
- Bottle Design Elements
- Vertical and Horizontal Design Elements
- Round and other shapes
- Avoid Sharp Corners and Small Radii
- Shapes for Semi-Solid products
- Shapes for Viscous products
- Design for easy conveying
- Common dimensions
- Multi-Axis curves and labeling
- Bottle shape and fill level
- Bottle shoulders and finish
- Handle design and top loading
- Squeezable LDPE Bottles
- EBM Pumps and pour spouts
- Collapsing bottle designs
- EBM unit dose vials
- Plastic Beer Bottles
- PET Bottle with crystallized finish
- Bottle design variations
- Environmental stress cracking
Closures
- General design considerations
- Finish & closure dimensioning conventions
- Closure and finish thread profiles
- Liner constructions
- Significance of mould type on closure threads
- Overview of common metal & plastic closure designs
- Child resistance and tamper evidence
Course Downloads
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