The vertical 3-roll stack accepts molten material from die, forms and cools it into a film/ sheet. The unit has a nip station with 6" diameter and 14" wide rolls. It has automated pull roll and winder station to have precise control over film thickness.

The ARBURG AllRounder 77 Ton Co-Injection Moulding Machine is for up-scaling laboratory injection moulding settings to production scale settings. However, the AllRounder does not allow for just up-scaling single injection moulding processes but also offers the capability for co-injection and foaming due to the Trexel SCF system. The use of this system allows for increased versatility in production parts. 

The NANON can be used to spin a variety of polymers into nanofibres under full computer control. The nanofibres can be produced as smooth-surface, porous-surface, beaded, core-sheath, or ultra-thin. The nanofibres orientation can also be controlled providing nanofibre materials that in the form of a non-woven cloth, aligned material, or aligned multi-layer material. The spinnerets and collectors with this setup are readily interchangeable. 

The Randcastle is equipped with a single screw micro-extruder and rheometer for controlled processing and monitoring of the polymer melt. After extrusion the polymer melt is fed into either the Randcastle cast film apparatus or blown film apparatus. 

HAAKE minilab is small scale lab scale extruder suitable for making nano composites. It is equipped with Minijet II injection molder for making various mechanical samples. It also allows measurement of melt viscosity with both counter and co screw rotation configuration.

The HAAKE PolyLab QC is a modular torque rheometer that is equipped with an interchangeable mixer to characterize the rheology of polymer materials under various temperatures and mixer screw speeds. The recorded “Rheogram” (torque and melt temperature vs. time at constant speed) is characteristic for different material types and blends. It can be used as a fingerprint in quality control for outgoing and incoming product inspections. Mixer tests can be pre-programmed and data can be analyzed using the PolySoft Mixer software.

The heated Carver press is used for compression moulding of thermoplastics and heated curing of thermosets. The Carver has two heated 12”x12” plates, with a maximum operating temperature of 650°F. The maximum compression force is 60,000 lbs. The heated press is equipped with a variety of mould shapes, both for materials testing and also for prototyping.

After optimizing the polymer processing and polymer blend/composite composition, we go to the next step to produce in bigger quantities to make big parts. This extruder is used for the scale-up for the polymers. This equipment helps in processing, formulating, mixing, blending, and compounding of thermoplastic polymers with additives, devolatilization and reactive extrusion. The extruder has also water bath and pelletizer. The final products are obtained in the form of pellets by the pelletizer in the end of the extruder.

This Micro 12cc Injection Moulding Machine is accompanied with the DSM Xplore 15 ml microcompounder. After engineering the polymers and natural fiber composites in the twin screw extruder, they are moulded to different geometries and shapes according to the specific standards for testing the mechanical properties by using this injection moulding equipment. The molten polymer and composites are injected to different moulds using certain amount of pressure.

The Power Gen 125 is used for homogenous dispersion of nanoparticles in a polymer matrix. The Power Gen 125 has a speed range of 8000 to 30,000 rpm, a volume range between 0.03 to 100 mL, and a maximum viscosity of 5000 cps. 

The micro-compounder is used for lab scale preparation of polymer blends and can be operated in co-rotation as well as counter-rotation. The DSM 15cc Twin Screw Micro-Compounder has three temperature zones each with a maximum operating temperature of 450°C with an rpm range of 1-250. The DSM Xplore is also equipped with a software interface which allows for control of the instrument parameters and acquisition of data for analyzing the processing.
The micro-injector - Micro 12CC Injection Molding Machine, is equipped with moulds conforming to dimensional specifications for tensile, impact and flexural testing according to ASTM D638, ASTM D790, and ASTM D256.
The micro-film device can be attached directly to the micro-compounder outlet port for processing of cast film.

The Micro-27 is a twin-screw extruder with 27 mm diameter screws and a gearbox capable of switching from co- to counter rotation and vice versa. The Micro-27 has all the specific parameters of large scale extruders which allows for up-scaling of lab scale compounding and reaction processes to large scale production settings. The Micro-27 also comes equipped with a 3-Roll Chill Stack and Winder for inline cast film processing.

Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Mould (VARTM) is a manufacturing method for thermosetting resins having potential advantage of relatively low cost with sufficiently high volume fractions of reinforcement and the process can be readily applied to large-scale structures. However, the vacuum assisted RTM (VARTM) processes depend on the following factors such as, how well the preform is placed in the mould, the uniformity of curing, and ensuring the resin fills all parts of the mould without voids. VARTM uses the vacuum to draw the resin into the mould cavity. In addition, the VARTM mould is usually an open mould and the fiber preform is sealed between the open moulds. VARTM is more labor intensive but can save great investment in mould tooling thus is suitable for low-mid volume production for large composite parts. This instrument will contribute to BDDC, in making different types of sturdy products using thermosetting resin and natural fibers.

This vacuum former will produce professional, quality and high definition vacuum formings on a small/medium scale quickly, efficiently and consistently. A flat thermoplastic sheet is clamped around its edges and heated. A mould is then elevated into the softened sheet and the air between the mould and sheet is evacuated. Atmospheric pressure forms the sheet around the mould. Once cooled, the forming is removed for trimming and finishing.