Short Courses (optional)
Prior to the conference, AIMCAL offers several outstanding optional short courses taught by leading industry experts. You can add them to your conference registration or register for short courses only. Click on the titles below to view details.
Pricing
The cost for each short course is $195 each.
Sunday, 8:30am - 12:00pm
Significant research on scratch behavior of polymeric coatings and films has been carried out in recent years owing to the ever-increasing emphasis on aesthetics, structural integrity, and protective functionality of polymer surfaces for many engineering applications. Since scratch performance is now recognized as an important engineering property for polymers, the ability to establish quantitative correlation between material parameters and scratch resistance becomes highly desirable. A new test methodology based on materials science and mechanics tools for evaluating scratch resistance of polymers has recently been developed at our laboratory and became a new ASTM/ISO standard (D7027/ISO19252). This new test method allows for simple, unambiguous quantitative evaluation and ranking of scratch resistance of polymeric materials, coatings, and films. Finite element methods (FEM) simulation has also been performed to facilitate the correlation between material parameters and surface damage observed during the scratch process. The usefulness of the new ASTM/ISO methodology for fundamental understanding of scratch behavior of coatings and films will be presented. Approaches for development of scratch resistant polymeric coatings and films will also be discussed.
Characterization of tensile true stress-strain curves and fracture toughness of ductile polymeric thin films is nontrivial. It requires extreme care in sample preparation to avoid premature film damage, in fixture design to minimize out of plane film wrinkling, and in the analysis of their deformation and corresponding energy partitioning to establish meaningful structure-property relationship. In this presentation, the tensile true stress-strain curves of a series of m-LLDPE blown films (Exceed 1012, 1018, and 1023) were generated to allow for quantitative energy partitioning at each deformation zone in situ as defined by the essential work of fracture (EWF) approach. The EWF approach is found to be highly effective in differentiation of film performance of varying film densities and upon change in their processing conditions, i.e., blow-up ratio, film gage, orientation, and froze-line height. Furthermore, in situ and post-mortem plastic zone analysis of the EWF tested films using digital imaging correlation (DIC) enable our determination of partitioned EWF energy terms with corresponding size and shape of the plastic zone and for correlation with films’ structural parameters. Implication of the present study for design of high performance LLDPE films is discussed.
H.-J. Sue
Polymer Technology Center
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Texas A&M University
College station, TX 77843
Whether you make, convert or use webs; you must know web handling. Find out how to:
- Eliminate wrinkles, baggy webs and apply effective spreading
- Eliminate winding defects
- Design and maintain web machinery, especially rollers
- Design and maintain control systems for tension, nip, guiding and more
- Design web products and processes for more reliable manufacturing
- Troubleshoot a variety of web, web handling and converting issues
- Understand why the web world does what it does
Bring your web handling problems to class, leave with solutions.Find out why more than 3,000 students have signed up for this premier instruction.
David Roisum of Finishing Technologies is a well-known authority in web handling and converting. He has authored eight books and more than 100 papers and articles such as his monthly Web Works column in Converting magazine. His background includes a variety of web manufacturing and converting experiences. At Beloit Corp. he was a machine designer and then research manager for winders. At the Web Handling Research Center he served as an advisor and helped set up their pilot lab. At Kimberly-Clark he worked as an internal converting consultant to all business units. Finally, as an independent consultant, he helps troubleshoot a variety of problems in the paper, film, foil, nonwoven and textile industries. He has visited nearly 1,000 plants in his more than 30 years of experience.
An accomplished professional speaker and instructor, he is noted for his skill in translating highly technical information into a common sense, practical reference. He has been honored several times with TAPPI's Finest Faculty Award based on the positive feedback from short course attendees. More than 5,000 students have attended his own courses including the ever-popular Web Handling and Converting.
David is also the blogmaster for the Web Handling & Converting blog on ConvertingQuarterly.com.
Sunday, 1:30pm - 5:00pm
This short course focuses strongly on coatings made by resistance evaporation but also touches briefly on e-beam evaporation and sputter deposition. It is intended for roll coater machine operators, maintenance personnel, technicians, engineers, scientists, supervisors, and others who would benefit from an introduction to topics related to roll-to-roll vacuum coating onto polymer film substrates (often simply referred to as vacuum web coating). This course emphasizes practical aspects of the topics, and the treatment will be descriptive with little mathematics used.
Topical Outline:
- Sources of information about vacuum web coating (where to find still more details)
- Markets for vacuum web coated products (who’s making money and with what)
- Vacuum technology issues related to web coating (how much vacuum do we need and why)
- Substrates for vacuum web coating (how our coated products depend on our substrates)
- Web handling and web winding systems (how to move the web without damage)
- Web cooling issues (how to avoid heat distortion and wrinkles)
- Deposition or coating processes (how to make the coatings we need):
- resistance evaporation (by far the most widely used coating process)
- e-beam evaporation (a high rate process for a broad range of materials)
- sputter deposition (a slower but very versatile process)
- Process and product monitoring methods (how to make consistently good product)
Donald J. McClure founded Acuity Consulting and Training to continue his love affair with vacuum coating and vacuum web coating in particular. Don retired from 3M's Corporate Research Laboratory in 2007 after spending twenty five years working on a broad range of products and projects that utilized vacuum roll coating and processing. Don has published his work extensively and is a co-inventor on 22 US patents. He is an AIMCAL consultant and a frequent contributor of papers and has served the Society of Vacuum Coaters in many roles including President and Secretary. He has offered his courses on the "Basics of Vacuum Web Coating" and "Sputter Deposition onto Flexible Substrates" for many years. His video tutorial, “A Wizard’s Guide to Vacuum and Vacuum Coating,” has been very well received and is available for a modest donation through the SVC Foundation web site. He was recognized by the SVC with their 2004 Nathaniel Sugerman Award for lifetime achievement. Still more details about Don can be found at www.linkedin.com/in/donacuitymcclure