Automotive Support
The Polymer Institute serves as a plastics application center that supports industries through contracted research and development activities. Assistance to the automotive companies generally fall into the following four areas.
- The Institute has been actively involved in permeation testing of both materials and containers for fuel barrier properties. Samples can be made in-house ranging from sheet to multilayer containers.
- A second area involves both material development and property analysis of new materials for mechanical, barrier and processability characteristics. Facilities are available for blending and extrusion of new materials.
- Supplementing these activities is a small staff experienced in computer simulation. This expertise has been applied to simulations of injection molding of fenders and multilayer die head design.
- The final area involves qualification and performance testing. Thermal stability and stress crack analyses are just two of the areas in which the Polymer Institute has aided the automotive industry.