Presentation to Interplas 93 Conference, NEC, 7th-11th November 1993.

S F Bush

Part 1: Advantages offered by UMIST Polymer Engineering

• Work in UMIST Polymer Engineering – UPE – coveres all three key areas: Process Technology, Material Properties and Product Design. In addition it provides a specific systems technology for their integration – IDM – Integrated Design and Manufacture.
• UPE has a proven track record in the development of innovatory processes, and maintains a vigorous ongoing research programme with research students from all over the world. Research students can study for MSc and PhD degrees. Alternatively there are a number of places on the prestigious new Engineering Doctorate – EngD – programme which embraces commerce as well as technology and is specifically tailored to industry’s needs. Researchers from industry are welcome for short-term secondments as well as these specific degree programmes.
• In addition to its own expertise, UPE can call upon the immense concentration of expertise within UMIST for information in subjects related to Polymer Engineering, but not confined to it such as physio-chemical analysis, computation, textile fibres, mechanical equipment design and so on. This range is unmatched by any commercial contract organisation and is particularly relevant to techno-economic assessments. An excellent library with access to four commercial databases comes with every contract.
• UPE has access to a comprehensive range of equipment from machine tools, presses, moulding machines and a CAD workstation, mechanical testing equipment (static and dynamic), a rheogoniometer, microscopy (optical and electron) and the standard range of thermal analysis and spectroscopic instruments.
• UPE is located within UMIST at the heart of Britain’s largest manufacturing region: Polyethylene, polyester fibre, acrylic sheet and Procion dyes were all discovered within a fifteeen radius of UMIST. The industrial revolution started in Manchester and the tradition of innovation still thrives.
• To give modern organisational form to this tradition, UPE is host to the North of England Plastics Processors Consortium – NEPPCO – a grouping of around forty companies spanning all the relevant Polymer industry expertises – tool making, compounding, extrusion, injection and blow moulding, vacuum forming, roto moulding, product design and marketing consultancy. This wide range of manufacturing capacity and practical expertise greatly increases the problem-solving and innovatory capability of the laboratory and academic expertise resident in the UMIST Polymer Engineering Department.