Plastics Manufacturing Systems Engineering
This book provides a vision and structure to integrate all the engineering disciplines that converge in the development of plastics manufacturing processes and systems. The topics are presented with a manufacturing systems approach, beginning with an introduction to manufacturing systems before delving into the subsystems that provide actuation, sensing, data acquisition, control, automation, and other functions.
The book is distinguished by a current treatment of information not readily available in other texts on polymer processing including data acquisition, modern control architectures, process characterization, process optimization, and quality control.
While academically rigorous, the book provides very pragmatic analysis with worked examples that can be readily adapted to “real world” plastics manufacturing systems design. It should help students and practitioners to understand the inner workings of their processes and think “outside the box” to develop innovative and highly competitive manufacturing processes.
Topics
- Manufacturing strategy & engineering economics
- Systems perspective of the most common plastics manufacturing processes including extrusion, injection molding, thermoforming, and blow molding
- Heating/cooling systems
- Hydraulics/pneumatics
- Electric drives
- Sensors such as force, pressure, position, and temperature transducers as well as associated issues such as range, response time, and accuracy
- Signal conditioners used for signal conversion, amplification, filtering, and digital signal processing
- Data acquisition: analog to digital, digital to analog, and digital input/output
- Systems integration with modern control system architectures including programmable logic controllers, virtualized PC controllers, and embedded controllers
- Closed loop control and controller tuning
- Process characterization methodologies based on statistical modeling of variation, design of experiments, and regression methods
- Process optimization, providing a treatment of both process window mapping and multi-objective optimization
- Quality control with gage R&R, acceptance sampling, and statistical process control
- Process and plant automation
Downloadable Content
Some useful information about the book includes:
- The table of contents
- The preface
Availability
The book was published by Hanser in July, 2007. It is now available via:
The Author
David Kazmer (Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University) is a Professor in the Department of Plastics Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He performs research and teaches courses related to plastics product and process development. Prior to his current appointment, he was an Applications Engineer at General Electric and Director of Research and Development at Synventive HotRunners. He is a licensed professional manufacturing engineer, and is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.