The Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), too, is treading new paths in these times of the corona pandemic. The conference originally planned for 29 March to 2 April 2020 was cancelled and, instead, made available digitally from 30 March to 5 May. Brian Landes, Chairman of the SPE, explains: "ANTEC is our annual opportunity to gather, encourage, challenge and spend time with one another. […] We are so passionate about the value of networking that we were not willing to cancel the ANTEC experience. Instead, we transformed the conference to a virtual offering that brings many more students and professionals in touch with this community." In fact, the amended format offered one big advantage: Instead of having to choose between various lectures running concurrently, the delegates this year had an opportunity to 'attend' all the presentations on offer at the conference.
Every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, experts presented papers on a wide variety of topics from the plastics segment via ZOOM. The focus was on innovations and solutions to some of the big challenges in many different areas, but they also covered other key topics such as sustainability. Subsequently, the delegates were able to take part interactively in moderated question/answer sessions. An average of 80 participants took part in the relevant video sessions and subsequently put questions to the speakers.
In a live stream, it was also possible every Monday to follow selected keynote sessions on trend topics on YouTube, for example "Circular Economy & Bio-based Polyamide" or "3D Printing & Hybrid Digital/Analog Supply Chain".
Eight members of IKV contributed to the conference by presenting papers. Here, too, the wide spectrum of the topics was clear to see:
- "Analyzing the Machine-specific Process Behavior for Automated Adaption of Setting Parameters" (Pascal Bibow, M.Sc.)
- "Foam Sheet Extrusion with Blowing Agent Mixtures and Correlation Analysis With Dimensionless Numbers" (Robert Breuer, M.Sc.)
- "Optimization of Processing Properties of CO2 Rubber Compounds" (Michael Drach, M.Sc.)
- "Influence of Variothermal Temperature Control on the Weld Line Quality of Extrusion Blow Molded Articles" (Dr.-Ing. Martin Facklam)
- "Enhanced Filling of Injection Molds By Microstructured Cavity Surfaces" (Magnus Orth, M.Sc.)
- "Evaluation of Mesh Interface and Immersed Boundary Models For the Optimisation of Mixing Elements" (Malte Schön, M.Sc.)
- "Degradable Plastics/Wood Hybrids For Sustainable Packaging Solutions" (Simon Wurzbacher, M.Sc.)
- "Extension of the Rivlin Polynominal for the simulation of the non-linear material behaviour of TPE" (Christoph Zimmermann, M.Sc.)
As a member of the SPE, you can view the edited versions of the papers at www.4spe.org.
Contact for questions:
Dr.-Ing. Martin Facklam
Tel.: +49 241 80-28372
martin.facklam@ikv.rwth-aachen.de