The Challenge:

Improve price and performance of high-pressure valve handle.

Solution:

Design a lightweight, ergonomic, and chemically-resistant handle manufactured with an engineering grade resin.

Steps:

• Analyze operating environment
• Select Resin
• Develop preliminary design
• Perform stress analysis
• Manufacture prototypes for customer review/approval
• Design and build tool
• Perform PPAP (Production Part Approval Process)
• Go to full scale production
  

The Challenge:

Upgrade product so it can withstand harsher and more demanding operating conditions.

Solution:

Evaluate and select a high-temperature resin whose electrical properties exceed those of the engineering grade resin currently being used and can withstand the harsher environment.

Steps:

Evaluate operating environment

• Operating temperature
• Exposure to solvents
• Electrical environment
• Mechanical stresses

Evaluate Resin Properties

• Electrical
• Mechanical
• Thermal
• Chemical
• Flammability

For this application High-Temperature Plastics were evaluated due to their superior properties. Some of those properties are as follows:

• High-temperature resistance, operating temperatures as high as 500°F.
• Excellent electrical properties
• High-radiation resistance
• Excellent water/chemical resistance
• High-wear resistance
• Good fire resistance without additives

For this application electrical resistance was the key criteria. Consequently a polyetherimide was chosen that had a dielectric strength of 710 volts/mil. This compared well against the engineering resin (polycarbonate) previously being used that had a dielectric strength of 380 volts/mil.

The Challenge:

Build a complex, ergonomically designed handle while minimizing part costs.

Solution:

Through the application of gas-assist injection molding developed an ergonomic, lighter weight and lower cost handle.

Advantages:

Some of the advantages over conventional molding are as follow:

• More ergonomic design
• Material savings of 40%
• Cycle time reduction of 50%
• Superior strength to weight ratio
• Minimal warp
• Eliminated sink marks
• Simplified tooling (no cores required)
• Lower clamp tonnage (smaller machine) required due to lower injection pressures
• Cost savings of over 40%
  

High-Density Composite Resins

The Challenge:

Find a material that has the attributes of lead without the associated toxicity issues.

Solution:

Work with material suppliers to evaluate emerging high-density composite resins that are ideal substitutes for lead.

Advantages:

Some of the advantages/properties of these composite resins are as follows:

• High specific gravity: 2.0 to 11.0 (lead = 11)
• Environmentally friendly
• Excellent chemical resistance
• Excellent for weighting (inertial discs, ballasts, sinkers, projectiles)
• Radiation shielding properties equivalent to lead
• Non toxic classification
• Eliminate disposal issues
• More design capability than lead
• Can be injection molded