Reading a Fracture Surface: Adhesive, Cohesive and Substrate Failure
The failure mode on a broken bond tells you which part of the process to fix. Classifying adhesive, cohesive and substrate failure, and what each implicates.
Choosing a Resin Pair and Colorants for Laser Welding
Weldability depends on melt compatibility and optical behavior at the wavelength. How colorants, fillers and additives decide whether a joint is possible.
Laser Transmission Welding of Plastics: Contour, Quasi-Simultaneous, Radial and Mask
Four beam-delivery strategies produce four weld behaviors. How contour, quasi-simultaneous, radial and mask welding differ and where each one belongs.
Welding Clear to Clear: Laser Joining Without Carbon Black
Joining two transparent polymers needs absorption somewhere. The absorber-free wavelengths, interlayers and dye systems that make visually clear welds possible.
Polycarbonate and Acrylic Hardcoats: Abrasion, Chemicals, Weathering
Hardcoat chemistries, application methods, adhesion and testing for polycarbonate and acrylic parts, plus the failure modes to design out before qualification.
Conductive, EMI-Shielding & Anti-Static Coatings for Plastic Housings
Conductive, EMI-shielding and anti-static coatings for plastic housings: resistance classes, coating options, adhesion and pretreatment, masking, testing and specification.
Coating Defects on Molded Plastic Parts: Craters, Fisheyes and More
How to diagnose craters, fisheyes, orange peel, blush, pinholes, dry spray and solvent stress cracking on painted injection-molded parts, and how to keep them from coming back.
Proving a Marking or Adhesion Specification Was — or Was Not — Met
Most supplier disputes over marks and bonds are really disputes about an unmeasurable spec. What makes a requirement provable, and how to test an existing one.
Cpk and Gage R&R for Mark Contrast and Adhesion Measurement
Capability numbers mean nothing if the measurement system consumes the tolerance. Measurement system analysis for contrast, adhesion and surface energy.
