PRESENTATION OVERVIEW:
Mechanical Testing of Plastics and Plastic Welds
The quality of plastic welds can be determined by a variety of mechanical testing methods and compared with the bulk properties of the base material. Some of the test methods that will be discussed include tensile, impact, fracture toughness, bend, creep, and stress relaxation. Quantitative evaluation of the bulk properties and of welds will also be presented.

BIO: Avraham (Avi) Benatar is an Associate Professor of Welding Engineering and Director of the Plastics and Composites Joining Laboratory. He is also the Director of the Welding Engineering Distance Education Master of Science program and the Faculty Director of the College of Engineering Master of Global Engineering Leadership. He earned the S.B., S.M and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Benatar teaches in the areas of joining of plastics and composites and welding design. His research interests include adhesive bonding and mechanical joining of plastics and composites, fundamentals of plastics and composites welding, optimization and control of welding processes, development of new welding methods, design of welded joints in plastics and composites including the use of moiré and speckle interferometry for residual stress measurement, ultrasonic processing of materials, welding design, modeling of brazed joints, and fitness-for-service.

Dr. Benatar was elected Society of Plastics Engineers Fellow in 2003. He was awarded a Lady Davis Visiting Associate Professor Fellowship to the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Tehnology in 1998-99 academic year. Dr. Benatar received the 1992 American Welding Society Adams Memorial Award and 1990 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award. From 1997 to 2003 he was Chairman and U.S. Delegate to the International Institute for Welding Commission 16 on plastics welding and adhesive bonding tehcnology. Dr. Benatar founded and was the first chairman of the American Welding Society G1 Committee on Joining of Plastics and Composites. He was also one of the founding members of and was Chairman and Technical Program Chairman of the Society of Plastics Engineers Special Interest Group on Joining of Plastics and Composites. He has more than 125 refereed publications and has co-authored one book and co-edited a handbook.

Ted Hutton first started welding thermoplastic materials in the early 1960’s. He worked with thermoplastic fabrication, welding, resin manufacturing, processing and specification for more than 50 years. Ted has considerable experience in the fluoropolymer resins.

Ted Hutton is an ASME member for +27 years and serves on various committees and subcommittees. He is active on ASME Standards committees including, ASTM, AWS, DVS, AGS, USP, and other thermoplastic related standards committees. Ted presently works with Engiplast Inc. to provide weld and climbing drum testing for AWS B2.4, ASTM C-1147, DVS, ASME RTP 1 and other standards.

PRESENTATION OVERVIEW:
Weld Quality Evaluation using Heated After Cross-Section (HACS) Method
Evaluation of the quality of polymer welds is essential to the development and production maintenance of a welding process. Weld evaluation methods can be categorized as destructive or nondestructive, and quantitative or qualitative. Each of these assessment types gives different types of information about the weld joint. There are very few approaches that can be used to determine whether there has been intermolecular diffusion across the weld joint, rather than an adhesive type of bond. One of the simplest methods to do so is via heating after cross-section (HACS). The theoretical basis for this approach and the experimental process will be described.

BIO: Miranda Marcus is a senior engineer at EWI. She has a PhD (2020) in Polymer Engineering from the University of Akron, and a masters (2006) and bachelors (2005) in Welding Engineering from The Ohio State University.

PRESENTATION OVERVIEW:
Performing Non-destructive Leak Testing for Plastic Parts:
In this presentation we will explore the different technologies used for leak testing, the challenges of each, effective methods for different part designs, and keys to repeatable results.

Additionally, you will hear why everything leaks and how to choose the correct reject rate to meet your testing specification, as an example bubble tight versus water tight measurements with measurable test values for each.

BIO: Gordon Splete is a Global Product Manager for Cincinnati Test Systems where he has enjoyed 26 years of supporting and communicating leak test solutions with customers and addressing their test applications. Every application has its own unique differences, Gordon has made it his career goal to develop strong technical partnerships with customers for both training and understanding their manufacturing process to define effective test solutions for simple and challenging applications. As an escape from the technical world, you will find Gordon with his wife and dog on an outdoor adventure.