Thermoplastic Material Selection: A Practical Guide

350 Pages·2015·28.978 MB·English

by  Eric R. Larson

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THERMOPLASTIC
MATERIAL SELECTION
A Practical Guide
Eric R. Larson
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To all those who dare to dream
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the members of my graphics team for helping
create a number of images that were used in this book. Whether it was
photography, illustration, digital editing, or the thankless task of organiza-
tion, you guys were amazing.
There is an old saying: A picture is worth a thousand words. All I can
say is that your contributions were appreciated. Thank you.
Alex Rennie
Dream Catcher Creative Media
http://dreamcatchercreativemedia.com/
Monique Feil
Monique Feil Photography
http://moniquefeil.com
Zach Petschek
Zach Petschek Photography
http://zachpetschek.com/
Preface
I have been building things for as long as I can remember. It started
when I was a kid with a set of Tinker Toys. With a floor to play on and a
tube full of sticks and wheels and paddles, I could let my imagination run
wild. I would spend hours making anything and everything. Then there
were Lincoln Logs and Lego blocks and Erector Sets. And while it was
fun to build things with those kits, Tinker Toys were always my favorite.
When I got older, I started building tree houses and forts, then model
cars and model airplanes, toothpick bridges, you name it. I loved exploring
how things went together, and how they came apart. Sometimes I would
take something apart just to see how it was put together. Then, I would
rebuild it—some times with “improvements”—other times with things
exactly the same. Although, more often than I would like to admit, there
were times when I thought I had put something back together exactly the
way I had found it, only to discover that I had overlooked a part, which
was now lying on the workbench. Oops!
As I experimented with building things, I would often look at the things
that were around me, not just the simple things, but big important stuff like
houses and cars and bridges, even airplanes. I dreamed that one day I could
help build something big and important like that. I did not really think
about what they would be made of—wood, concrete, steel, whatever—I
just knew that I wanted to help build them. When I got to college, I ended
up studying aerospace engineering. My goal was to build airplanes.
After I got my degree, I got a job working for an aircraft company.
One of my first assignments involved the design of the support structure
for a vertical stabilizer, what is commonly known as a rudder. It is an
important part of the aircraft, and if it does not work, well, there are going
to be problems. I do not remember much about the job, except for the fact
that I hated it. I used to try and describe my job to my friends. I would
show them pictures, and point to the parts I had worked on. Hey, look
at this structural support, and the fasteners that were used. No, not that
one, the over one, the third one from the bottom, the one with no rivets,
just a single machine screw with a locking washer. That one. Isn’t that an
awesome design? Needless to say, I soon realized that aircraft design was
not my true calling.
xv
xvi Preface
So, I quit my job and got a job designing body boards. A body board
is a short surfboard, usually made of foam, that allows the user to lay on
top of it, and then ride the surf in a manner similar to body surfing. While
the job did not pay that well, it was a fun job, and every thing about it
was interesting. I learned about design, materials, manufacturing costs,
product development, and listening to the voice of the customer. It was
also my introduction to the world of thermoplastics.
In the time since then I have had a number of different jobs, most of
them in the world of product design and development, and in all of them I
have worked with thermoplastics—either as a design engineer, application
engineer, or project manager. In the process, I have learned a thing or two
about these materials, and I have tried to capture some of the things I have
learned in this book. My intent is not to present a comprehensive encyclo-
pedia about thermoplastic materials or to pretend that I know everything
there is to know about these materials. Rather, I am presenting a guide
book, one that provides practical, common sense information about the
use, reuse, and effective application of these unique materials.
My hope is that those who read this book will use the information in a
wise and thoughtful manner—not just to make something cheaper, but to
devise new and better ways of making things, things that will change our
world for the better. In the words of Walt Disney, If you can dream it, you
can do it.
Eric R. Larson
January, 2015
1 Introduction
Whether tools, weapons, clothing, shelter, jewelry, or even toys, humans
have always made things. One might even argue that the meaning of the
word human is to make.
The materials used to make things have changed throughout history,
from found to extracted to synthesized. In the process, knowledge about
how to use these materials has been passed along from generation to gen-
eration, from culture to culture, from continent to continent. This knowl-
edge comes in a variety of forms, ranging from common sense, to tribal
knowledge, to sage wisdom, to trade secrets and intellectual property.
Today, many of the things that humans make are made from plastics.
We use plastics to protect our children, to preserve our food, to entertain
us, and to communicate and connect with other people. Our health and
happiness in our day-to-day lives—and, one might even argue, the very
future of our species—depends on our effective use of these materials.
Plastics are unique materials, with unusual properties and performance
characteristics. They range from simple compounds similar to beeswax, to
highly engineered, specialty materials like Teflon®, whose properties seem
to defy the laws of physics. After all, if Teflon is such a resilient, repellant,
and nonstick material—how does it stick to the pan?
There are many books about plastics technology, including some that
try to help users select an appropriate plastic material for a given applica-
tion. Sadly, most of these books are written from the perspective of a poly-
mer chemist, and they fail to provide the user with any guidance on how to
evaluate plastic materials in a practical, hands-on manner.
This book is meant to be a guide in the process of plastics material
selection. It is based on the simple premise that we all make things, and
that we have a fundamental understanding of how to use materials—based
on our heritage as human beings.
Let us begin our journey into the world of plastics by taking a quick look
at human history. You may find that you know more about m aterials—and
about plastics—than you think.
1.1 The Stone Age
Paleoanthropology—the study of ancient hominid fossils—has shown
that humans have always made things. The oldest stone tools, found in
Thermoplastic Material Selection. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-31299-8.00001-5
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1
2 Thermoplastic Material Selection
Ethiopia, date back to about 3.4 million years ago, and could have been used
by any of the several varieties of hominid, perhaps even by the ancestors
of our species, Homo sapiens [1]. Less than a million years ago, Neander-
thals, a not-so-distant cousin (and perhaps a subspecies of H. sapiens), left
behind musical instruments made out of bones, along with stone tools and
flint blades. They used these blades to make wooden spears, hand-axes, and
to skin animal hides for clothing and shelter. Historical records of our spe-
cies, H. sapiens, date back to about 200,000 years ago. It is now known that
H. sapiens interacted with Neanderthals, resulting in some genetic exchange,
and probably some material culture sharing, too [2–4] (Figure 1.1).
Regardless of the species, all of the earliest hominids used naturally
occurring materials, such as plants, bones, feathers, skins, and tendons.
Humans found and modified shells, antlers, and horns for functional and
decorative purposes. Shells coated in red ochre clay and used as beads for
jewelry, found in what is now eastern Morocco, date back to 82,000 years
ago. Excavations in the Sibudu Cave alongside the Tongati River in South
Africa reveal shells that were used as containers—not just for water or
other goods, but for paint (see Ref. [5]). Layers of sediment preserving
Figure 1.1 A sample of early stone tools. HeinNouwens/Shutterstock.com.
1: Introduction 3
years of occupation dating from 50,000 to 80,000 years ago contain nee-
dles, animal traps, bone arrowheads, some stone tools, and a type of binder
or glue made of ochre clay [6]. Much later, stone was used to make mas-
sive buildings and, around the time the wheel was invented, the first roads.
The materials these early humans left behind have enabled anthropolo-
gists to learn about each civilization’s technological and cultural devel-
opment. The things they made and how they made them—their material
culture—can tell us a lot about how they lived, what was important to them,
and what motivated them to build and invent new things. Much of the knowl-
edge about materials came from the exchange of ideas and material culture
between peoples, as well as apprenticeship, the passing on of knowledge
through generations. As it turns out, there was a “materials science” long
before the term was ever coined and institutionalized in universities.
As humans developed, so did their use of materials. Many of the mate-
rials used in ancient times are still in use today, including stone and ani-
mal shells. These materials still have the same qualities that they did
back then, including appearance and feel. But the development of metals
led to a whole new way of life, made possible by the unique qualities of
these materials. While it was once thought that the practice of metallurgy
began in one place and diffused around the globe through trade, the latest
archaeological evidence indicates that it was more complicated than that.
In many cases, people discovered how to use metal independently of one
another. This led to a diversity of techniques in metallurgy, some of which
led to smelting, as well as the synthesis of new alloys.
1.2 The Age of Metals
Beginning about 8700 BCE, copper with its lustrous sheen and flex-
ible properties attracted the human eye in Mesopotamia, Asia and other
sites around the world. People learned how to extract raw metal from ores,
and began to use found metals like copper, silver, and gold. Europeans
and Asians first used copper to make pigments and jewelry [7]. Smelted
copper appeared around 5500 BCE in southeastern Europe—what is now
Serbia [8]. The Sumerians and Egyptians also loved copper, crafting reli-
gious iconography, jewelry (of course), and even pipes for use in plumbing
[9,10]. Copper was used in North and South America, too. Some of the
oldest copper artifacts date back to about 6000 BCE in North America.
Indigenous Americans did not smelt copper, but hammered it into shapes.
Living near the Great Lakes, they had access to a great deal of pure copper,
and made knives, awls, spearpoints, and jewelry [11,12] (Figure 1.2).