One of the important concerns about the quality of the thermoplastic composite in Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) process is the degradation of thermoplastic resin, resulting from the overheating or the lack of proper heating by the heating system used in the automated fiber placement machine head. Heat transfer between the heating system and incoming pre-impregnated tow is not easy to control ...

Aim: Thermoplastic immobilization devices are used in head and neck radiotherapy to increase precision of treatment delivery. However, there is concern about increase in radiation induced skin morbidity with the use of such devices. This study was conducted with an aim to evaluate any increase in clinically observed skin reactions with the use of thermoplastic immobilization devices. Materials ...

Thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs) are a class of thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) that are used in a variety of applications (1). TPUs exhibit low temperature flexibility, excellent abrasion resistance, high tensile strength and good processing characteristics. The current medical grade TPU’s have unique property that the flex modulus decreases (softens) when placed in the body. A new resilient...

Attempts have been made for the first time to produce a friction material with thermal sensitive modulus by the inclusion of combined plastic/rubber properties of thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) as viscoelastic polymeric materials into the formulation for the purpose of increasing the damping behavior. In order to evaluate the viscoelastic parameters such as loss factor (tan δ) and elastic m...

attempts have been made for the first time to produce a friction material with thermal sensitive modulus by the inclusion of combined plastic/rubber properties of thermoplastic elastomers (tpe) as viscoelastic polymeric materials into the formulation for the purpose of increasing the damping behavior. in order to evaluate the viscoelastic parameters such as loss factor (tan δ) and elastic modul...

Styrene is an important monomer in the manufacture of thermoplastic. Most of it is produced by the catalytic dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene. In this process that depends on reversible reactions, the yield is usually limited by the establishment of thermodynamic equilibrium in the reactor. The styrene yield can be increased by using a hybrid process, with reaction and separation simultaneously....

A series of flattened-nanotube reinforced thermoplastic composites are sizably fabricated as a function of buckypaper loading. The effects of the volume fraction, nanotube alignment and length on the tensile performance of the composites are factored into a general expression. The incorporation of self-reinforcing polyphenylene resin (Parmax) into a highly aligned buckypaper frame at an optimal...

This paper presents the results of thermo-mechanical characterization of Glass/Epoxy composite specimens using Infrared Thermography technique. The specimens used for the study were fabricated in-house with three different lay-up sequences and tested on a servo hydraulic machine under uni-axial loading. Infrared Camera was used for on-line monitoring surface temperature changes of composite spe...

Flax fibres are oftenly used for reinforcing thermoplastic to manufacture biocomposite materials exhibiting numerous advantages such as high mechanical properties, low density and biodegradability. The mechanical properties of a biocomposite material depends on the nature and orientation of the fibres, the nature of the matrix and mainly on the adhesion between fiber and the polymer matrix. The...

A unique technique for the rapid fabrication of thermoplastic microfluidic chips is described. The method enables the realization of fully-sealed microchannels in around one hour while requiring only minimal infrastructure by taking advantage of a solvent swelling mechanism that allows raised features to be patterned on the surface of homogeneous thermoplastic materials. Patterning is achieved ...