What is XTRU-XPERT?

XTRU-XPERT enables the systematic identification of the root causes of various extrusion defects, facilitates the quick calculation of important quantities, and recommends courses of action for troubleshooting.  It also includes a glossary with very informative explanations, unit conversion calculations, and carefully chosen and presented information on the most relevant aspects of plastics extrusion.  It is based on many years of research, consulting and university and industrial seminar teaching by Professor John Vlachopoulos, Director of the Centre for Advanced Polymer Processing and Design (CAPPA-D), McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Surging, Screw/Barrel Wear, Melt Blockage, Moisture, Gels, Sharkskin and Melt Fracture, Die Lip Buildup (Drool), Weldlines, Flow Lines in Machine Direction, Thickness non-Uniformities, Poor Mixing/Compounding, Layer-to-Layer non-Uniformities, and Interfacial Instabilities in Co-extrusion.

QUICK CALCULATIONS

Extruder:  Throughput, Power, Torque, Maximum Shear Rate, Maximum Shear Stress

Dies (of various shapes): Pressure Drop, Wall Shear Rate, Wall Shear Stress, Average Frictional Temperature Rise

Viscosity (MFI):   From one value of the Melt Flow Index (MFI) XTRU-XPERT provides an educated guess of viscosity, or from two values of MFI (Standard Load and High Load) XTRU-XPERT gives an approximate estimate of viscosity in terms of the Power-law model.

System Requirements

Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP, Pentium processor, 16 MB RAM.

Click to see Sample Windows

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