Rauwendaal Extrusion engineering, Inc.
Rauwendaal Extrusion Engineering, Inc. 530.269.1082

A Polymer Process Engineering & Training Company Home of the CRD Mixing Screws

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Understanding Extrusion Seminar, four half-days Online Seminar
by Chris Rauwendaal

Day 1 through 4: March 11, 14, 18, and 21, 2024

Troubleshooting Extrusion Problems Seminar, four half-days Online Seminar
by Chris Rauwendaal

Day 5 through 8: April 1, 4, 8, and 11, 2024

All Seminars:
7:00 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific Standard Time
10:00 AM - 02:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

You can register for the Understanding Extrusion seminar or the Troubleshooting Extrusion seminar or both seminars (best deal).

These seminars will be presented online due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Printable Outline and Scanable Registration Form We will send you an invoice and you can use the custom payment area on our home page to make a payment with a credit card or use a PO# and send us a check.  

Online Registration

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Cancellation Policy

A refund, less $150.00 cancellation fee, will be made if the registration is cancelled in writing no later than February 15, 2024. REE, Inc. reserves the right to cancel one or more seminars or substitute instructors. Should this occur, attendees will be notified.

About the Seminar

“Eliminate the art - work smart” With this seminar you can become the smartest extrusion person in your company and make your company a world-class producer.

What the attendees will learn

  • How to use a high-speed DAS (HS-DAS)
    • to analyze pressure and melt temperature variation in the extruder
    • to optimize the barrel temperature profile
    • to quantify extrusion process stability
  • How to obtain data on viscosity versus shear rate from a lab extruder
  • How to determine the melt fracture behavior of your polymer
  • How to measure melt temperature correctly
  • How to measure melt pressure correctly
  • How to perform QC on incoming raw material
  • How extruder screws and dies can be designed for optimum performance
  • How to make your manufacturing operation more cost effective
  • How to make sure you have the right extrusion equipment
  • How Industry 4.0 can be applied to extrusion operations
  • How to fix extrusion problems
  • How to reduce gels and black specks

Who should attend

  • Extruder operators
  • Set-up technicians
  • Process engineers
  • Quality control personnel
  • Floor supervisors
  • Plant managers
  • Production managers
  • Technical service personnel
  • Extruder manufacturers
  • Maintenance personnel

View Testimonial from Previous Seminars

Understanding and Optimizing Extrusion
  • Introduction and Hardware (Day 1)
    • Basic components
    • Review of terminology
    • Components of an extruder
    • Heating and cooling
    • Instrumentation & control
  • Polymer properties
    • Melt flow properties
    • Thermal properties
    • Viscous heat generation
    • How to improve extrusion
  • Functional aspects (Day 2)
    • Solids conveying
    • Plasticating
    • Melt conveying
    • Mixing
  • Extruder Screw Design (Day 3)
    • Standard extruder screw
    • Variations on std. screw
    • Mixing screws
    • Barrier screws
    • Multi-stage screws
  • Twin screw extruders (Day 4)
    • Twin vs. single screw
    • Co-rotating twin screw
    • Counter-rotating twins
    • Co- versus counter-rotating
    • Non-intermeshing twins
  • Extrusion Die Design (Day 4)
    • Rules and guidelines
    • Analysis of dies
    • Die flow problems
      • Die drool
      • Melt fracture
      • Concentricity
      • Die lines
    • Tubing and pipe dies
    • Sheet and film dies
    • Profile dies
    • Wire coating dies
    • Coextrusion dies
Troubleshooting Extrusion Problems
  • Troubleshooting Extrusion Problems (Day 5)
    • Methodology
    • Requirements for troubleshooting
      • Instrumentation and DAS
      • Condition of equipment
      • Information on feedstock
    • Importance of data acquisition
    • Common mistakes in companies
    • Machine related problems
      • Wear
      • Poor screw design
      • Poor die design
    • Functional problems
      • Conveying
      • Melting
      • Mixing
    • Polymer degradation (Day 6)
      • Types of degradation
      • Solving degradation problems
    • Extrusion instabilities
    • Mechanics of surging
    • Fast Fourier Transform analysis (Day 7)
    • Melt fracture and shark skin
    • Gel problems (Day 8)
      • Gels formed in polymerization
      • Gels formed in the extruder
      • How to eliminate gels
    • Air entrapment
    • Shrink voids
    • Optimizing barrel temperatures
    • Practical examples/case studies
      • Wear problems
      • Surging
      • Degradation, etc.

About the Instructor:
Dr. Chris Rauwendaal has been a top seminar instructor for over 30 years. He has taught with SPE, University of Wisconsin, UC Berkeley and has taught many in-house courses. He is a well-known plastics author. Chris has over 45 years' experience in the plastics industry. Chris will be inducted in the Plastics Hall of Fame on May 5, 2024.

His experience is in a wide range of extrusion operations, including fiber spinning, film, sheet, tubing, medical tubing & profile extrusion, coextrusion, and reactive extrusion. He has worked on both practical and theoretical problems such as screw & die design, troubleshooting, modeling and computer simulation, material analysis, failure analysis, etc. Chris has authored 7 books on extrusion and related fields.

Since 1990 he has been President of Rauwendaal Extrusion Engineering, Inc., a company that provides custom extruder screws and other extrusion hardware, training programs, engineering and expert witness services to the plastics industry. With screw design as his specialty, REE had developed patented technologies in the following areas:

  • Elongational Mixing Devices
  • Mixing non-return valves
  • Single screw compounding extruder
  • Cooling screws for foam extrusion
  • Super degassing screws for single screw extruders

For registration contact: chris@rauwendaal.com
For seminar content contact: chris@rauwendaal.com