Seminar introduction: three days, mapped

Full transcript

00:00 Good morning everyone. Welcome to the class. Over the next three days, we're going to focus on automotive plastic part design. And before we get started, just to give you a quick synopsis on the subject matter at hand for the next three days. We'll start bright and early this morning, discussing various market segments and opportunities for plastic polymers in automotive market over the next three to five years. Then we'll follow that with understanding plastic materials, major properties, features. And then following that, we're going to focus on safety factors, followed by the ABC of plastic part design,

00:49 very simple concepts on designing plastic parts, followed by the non-linearities. We will discuss the geometrical and material non-linearities. Then we will discuss assembly techniques, welding, such as welding. And during that section, we will cover a variety of topics, such as ultrasonic welding, heat welding, hot plate welding, vibration welding, laser.

01:29 And then we will focus on spin welding, the last method, which I call the technique of last resort, refers to electromagnetic welding, which is a technique which will cost a little more, but typically solves the problems. Once we finish the welding techniques, we will focus on bonding, which is a large subject matter. I will try in about an hour, maybe two, to cover the most important aspects of the bonding. The first part is the bonding area, such as surface energy, such as bond design, joint design, and various stresses in a joint assembly.

02:12 Then that will be followed by painting, and we will briefly discuss the painting operation, including washing for automotive operations. And then we will start probably the most important topic of the class, which will be most likely to me, which is the process of welding. And the second part is the paint. And the third part, which we will focus on, we will just talk about it tomorrow, and it's called press fits. During this section, besides learning about how to design press fits, we will focus mostly on methodology, a step-by-step procedure on how to design anything in plastics.

02:54 And we will have two case history, plastic against plastic and metal against plastic, the last one being an automotive application, a case history. Then we will focus on living hinge design, which is the process of welding or, for example, the art of welding. We will cover the theory, we will cover case history, we will cover a software which I will provide to you free if you are so interested on how to design living hinges. Once we accomplish those steps, we will have a class exercise which will focus on actually designing a plastic part having living hinges and we will have about 40 minutes to do so. Then, later in the day, we will finalize the second day of the class with snap fits but because this subject matter is extensive, we will continue in the third day and this topic will take about four hours.

03:44 We will talk about three major groups such as cantilever beams, annular snap fits, and torsional snap fits and we will cover the theory, we will have case histories. We will... I will share with you a methodology on how to do it both in a generic way and in a step-by-step way and then they will be followed by a class exercise and then I will share with you a variety of software available in the marketplace for assisting us designers on how to design snap fits. After we finish this subject matter which most likely will be the third day around late morning.

04:27 We will start the most advanced topic of the class which is entitled integral seals. During that section, what we are going to learn, we will learn how to actually design integral seals using rigid plastics to design them as elastomeric materials, flexible components. And we will talk about the materials, we will talk about the structural analysis using the... advanced codes such as abacus and we will discuss about tool design, processing, and quality controls for obtaining such integral seals.

05:08 That subject matter will be followed by the latest technology in injection molding which is called in-mold assembly and over-molding. We will show you examples, case histories, samples, and a procedure on how to design the tool. And the parts to achieve in-mold assembly both in automotive and in any other commercial parts. And also in-mold assembly, over-molding for touch and feel kind of feelings. Then after that, we start with the troubleshooting. What I will discuss during that section is as a design engineer, you release parts and then you receive samples from vendors and you evaluate them.

05:54 And the troubleshooting is to understand the design process. And then you evaluate them and the troubleshooting is to understand the design process. And then you evaluate them and the troubleshooting is to understand the design process. And then you evaluate them and the troubleshooting is to understand what went wrong with those plastic parts. Once that section is accomplished, then we continue with tooling. And the tooling is also focused on the design for the designer. It will not be a topic which will cover the tool design for tool makers. It will be a tool design for designers. And we will cover gates, runners, and screws. That will be followed by the last topic of the class, which is called the mechanical fasteners, in which we'll cover two examples, two types of designs.

06:35 It will be thread-forming and thread-cutting screws. That will be followed by a consultation, so I will be able to answer all your questions for about 45 minutes discussing your projects. So that's the plan for the next three days.