Polymer Testing Newsletters

Well, it's that time of year again, and FlemigPTC would like to thank everyone who has used the service over the last twelve months. As ever, the projects were challenging and interesting-it never ceases to amaze just what companies are working on these days. The last two months have seen principal Don Fleming travel to the Czech Republic for the Compuplast annual distributors meeting and give a seminar to the MSc students at the IPTME, Loughborough University. Together with the usual range of activities, what has been very welcome, amongst the apparent economic doom, has been the willingness of government to part-fund some polymer industry projects. For more detail on this and other recent activities read on. In the meantime, many thanks again to all of the companies and personnel who we have had the pleasure to work with over the last year. Please have a happy Christmas and revitalising New Year and we look forward to working with you all again in 2009.

Welcome to the October 2008 newsletter and in fact to the tenth anniversary of the business. Yes, in 1998 the business was created following a realisation that the expertise now offered was in short supply. The business has gone from strength to strength, worked for many of the industries top companies, gained a DTI sponsored R&D award and patent, together with ISO901:2000 registration, along the way. Back in ’98 the Compuplast distributorship was yet to be introduced, so in 2005 following the retirement of the former agent, Symbolic Systems, Don Fleming was pleased to take up the opportunity to be involved with arguably the world’s most forward thinking and reactive extrusion flow simulation company. As computing power has increased, the range of processes now available for simulation has increased likewise, and with the skill of the Compuplast team, many can now be visualised on a scale unthinkable only a few years ago. Much of the new techniques installed (DSC & TGA) have come from a need to provide the Compuplast programs with the data they require for such simulation. Together with the existing shear, extensional viscosity and melt density, capability, DSC now allows Tm, Tf, Cp and Hf values to be imported. These extra values are essential for a comprehensive characterisation of a customer’s polymer the ever increasing complexity of today’s polymer grades, with their unique additive packages makes book values rather unrealistic. The ability to measure these values in-house has been a great assest in characterising exactly a clients proprietory grade. As ever, the business looks to see what technique may be of interest to the client base, so if you have any thoughts don't hesitate to contact us. Another benefit of the introduction of DSC has been the ability to determine the ejection and transition temperatures for our clients using Moldflow. Please read on to see what has been happening over the last month or so and what is in the pipeline.

Welcome to the March 2008 edition of the FlemingPTC newsletter and again many thanks are extended to all those who made the last two months as interesting as usual. January saw Don Fleming attend the annual Compuplast agents and distributors meeting where VEL 6.2 was introduced together with the new Injection Moulding Plastification Program. The DSC was also in much demand seeing use in characterising a range of polymers for melt temperature Tm, crystallisation temperature, Tf, heat of fusion, Hf, and with the addition of a new sapphire reference disc, specific heat capacity, Cp. Fleming PTC now has the capability to provide all of this data in-house under ISO9001:2000, which greatly expands the service and provides a one-stop-shop approach to characterisation and flow simulation. Gas switching to provide oxidative behaviour using the TGA is also under consideration, so please read on, and as usual, do not hesitate to call for further insight.