User-Focused Testing. Plastic-testing systems are becoming more automated, easier to use, and solutions-oriented

Published in: Plastics Engineering. Wiley.
January 2014. Pages 18-22
Author: M. Verespej

Abstract:

Dramatic change is occurring in test equipment as manufacturers respond to the changing needs of plastics processors, compounders, resin manufacturers, and companies that use plastics and composite parts in their products.

In short, test equipment is becoming more user-focused, more automated, easier to use, and solutions-oriented-not just by providing data, but by interpreting results-all in response to more complex polymers, more composites materials, and fewer skilled technicians.

“New complex polyolefins are becoming standard in the market,” creating a need for closer scrutiny and control to prevent losses from off-grade material, particularly since throughput capacity both of processing lines and of reactors has “grown significantly in the past few years,” says Benjamin Monrabal, director of R&D and founder of Polymer Charac­terization, S.A. (Polymer Char) in Valencia, Spain.