Polydynamics, Inc. was founded in 1994 for research, development and licensing of user-friendly software for simulation, analysis, design and troubleshooting of plastics extrusion and other polymer processing operations. The packages have been used in over five hundred industrial sites in twenty nine countries around the world (including Canada, USA, Columbia, Brazil, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, UK, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Ireland, and Mexico). They have helped R&D personnel and process or design engineers at many Fortune 500 companies in the USA, like Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan and Freeport, Texas; DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware; and other international giants like Mitsubishi Chemical in Japan and Tetrapak in Sweden. The software has also been used at smaller companies like Brampton Engineering in Ontario, Canada; Plastitec Limitada in Bogota, Colombia; Hyplast in Belgium; and university-based research centres like the Department of Plastics Technology in Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the Rheology Laboratory at the University of St. Etienne, in France. The software is based on forty years of research under the leadership of Professor John Vlachopoulos at the Centre for Advanced Polymer Processing and Design (CAPPA-D), at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The research work at McMaster is sponsored by NSERC of Canada. There is considerable interaction with industry and all software products are continuously subjected to improvement and rigorous validation.
Current efforts on simulation software are aimed towards NEXTRUCAD for the simulation of single screw extrusion and the development of a new software called CALCUTRUDE for practical computer calculations involving pressure drops, stresses and strain rates through dies and extrusion equipment.
Polydynamics is also involved in R&D and consulting projects with several corporations for process simulation, optimization, and equipment design. The OpenFOAM free open source software (www.openfoam.org) is used extensively for 3D molten polymer flow simulations. Wherever there are problems in polymer extrusion or other plastics processing operations, Polydynamics and its network of agents and representatives will help in finding solutions through the use of simulation software and/or rheological characterization.
Polydynamics also organizes short courses and seminars on polymer rheology and extrusion a couple of times per year. Past short courses include: Brussels (1994, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2019), Burlington (Ontario, near Toronto) (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2012), Dusseldorf (1995), Amsterdam (1996, 2000), Antwerp (1998), Melbourne Australia (2000, 2016), Auckland New Zealand (2016). Niagara Falls (Ontario) (2006), Miura (near Kamakura) Japan (2007), Valencia Spain (2008, 2019), Arnhem Netherlands (2008), Duisburg (2012) and Milan Italy (1996, 2002, 2005, 2008). The short course was also presented via Skype for the first time in January 2013. It was presented online via ZOOM (November 2022 and April-May 2023). For future seminars and short courses click here for the listing.