Knowledge

Turning Predictive Maintenance Into a Financial Decision A critical PTFE immersion heater operating inside a chemical process tank may represent a surprisingly large operational risk. A sudden heater

A Classic Transparency vs. Toughness Showdown The traditional Pyrex glass condenser found in chemical laboratories is a borosilicate glass heat exchanger, a thing of fragile beauty. It offers a unique

Supercritical water oxidation is the ultimate waste destruction process, whereby the most hazardous and persistent organic molecules in water are oxidized above its critical point. At temperatures abo

A Heat Exchanger for Continuous Operation A heat exchanger on a ship is never stationary. The vessel is constantly rolling, pitching, yawing and heaving as it responds to wave loading and varying sea

Deep Thermal Problem in Thick Composite Curing Curing a slab of carbon fibre composite several inches thick is not like curing a thin skin. The heat from the heated platens must pass slowly through th

Sometimes a PTFE exchanger is thought to have a very small leak in the external steel shell that is frequently too small to be visually seen or found with traditional bubble testing. A pressure decay

Aerospace Glazing as a Precision Thermal Forming Process The window in the cockpit of a passenger jet is a multi-layer slab of stretched acrylic, designed for optical clarity, impact resistance, and s

One day a research and development press or a job shop might mold rubber parts and the next day cure sticky epoxy composites. A single, fixed platen surface cannot provide both the optimal non-stick b

Anomaly in Repeatable Cold Start Control The press platens are begun on a frigid Monday morning, after a cold weekend. The first heating cycle overshoots the setpoint by 10 degrees, burning or scorchi

The PTFE immersion heater is essentially a resistive device, but the internal metal core, a lengthy stainless steel sheath or support tube, is located in a weak alternating magnetic field produced by

The shiny chrome trim on a car grille starts as a piece of dull, injection-moulded ABS plastic. To transform this non-conductive substrate into a surface capable of accepting metal deposition, the pla

A High Power Electrical Inrush Challenge A big bank of PTFE immersion heaters with a total power of hundreds of kilowatts represents a massive and highly dynamic electrical load. If all the heating el