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Research
Smart Blending could revolutionize plastics
manufacturing
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Dave Zumbrunnen,
Clemson's Warren H. Owen-Duke Energy Professor of Mechanical
Engineering, developed his "smart blending" process
along with faculty and student researchers from Clemson's
Center for Advanced Engineering Fibers and Films. |
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 A
new “smart blending” process developed by Clemson University
researchers could change the way plastics are made and improve their
performance. Early results published in Polymer Engineering and
Science have already drawn interest from European and United States
plastics manufacturers. Dave Zumbrunnen, who heads the Clemson research
team, said smart blending could bring plastics production into the
21st century.
“Most
people would be surprised to learn that many plastics are not optimized
for their intended use due to limitations of existing manufacturing
equipment,” he said. With a smart-blending machine, however,
engineers can optimize the material for maximum effectiveness with
only a few strokes on a computer keyboard. Many plastics are mixtures
of two or more plastics and additives. Smart blending arranges these
plastics into functional internal shapes as small as 1/10,0000th
the diameter of a hair. That’s important because it’s
those small-scale structures that determine the attributes, or properties,
of the composite. Smart blending produces plastics that are tougher,
electrically conductive, porous, or whatever is needed for the particular
end-product, but without expensive trial and error.
Zumbrunnen,
a recipient of the Presidential Faculty Fellow Award from The White
House, and a recent participant in the National Academy of Engineering’s
prestigious Frontiers of Engineering symposium, is the Warren H.
Owen-Duke Energy professor of mechanical engineering.
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