Course: An Introduction to Continuous Vulcanization
May 15 @ 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
CEUs: 0.66 (To receive the CEUs, attendees must attend the course live and promptly complete the survey evaluation after the course.)
Location: This course is available virtually only. It can be taken from the comfort of your home or office – remotely from any tablet, laptop or computer.
Course Overview: This course was developed for rubber industry employees who currently use Continuous Vulcanization (CV) processes and wish to expand their knowledge or those who wish to gain insights into these processes and how they can be used.
This course will offer an overview of the variety of commercially viable Continuous Vulcanization processes and their strengths and weaknesses. Following that, it will take the participants into a more in-depth study of the three most common forms of CV, Liquid Curing Media (LCM), better known as the Salt Bath process, Hot Air Vulcanization (HAV) and Microwave/Hot Air Vulcanization. The emphasis will be on practical knowledge that can be utilized in production along with safety concerns that always need to be addressed.
We will begin by looking at the common elements to all three processes, namely the extruder and its auxiliary components, plus downstream equipment for cooling and pulling. The course then will look at each of the three CV processes individually giving useful ideas for process improvements that the participants can apply in their own manufacturing. The course will conclude with a brief look at rubber compound development for these CV processes and will conclude with a question and answer session. There will be samples of products made using CV processes available for examination.
Price: $595 Member / $745 Non-members / Free for Undergraduate Student Members / $100 Other Student Members
Instructor: Richard D. Strong, President, Elastomeric Consulting Services LLC
Mr. Strong is currently President and CEO of Elastomeric Consulting Services. He is a 1971 graduate of the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth where he received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and was awarded the Fred E. Busby award for outstanding work in Chemistry.
He has over 50 years of experience in various aspects of rubber technology and has served as Chief Technical Officer for over 30 years of his career. His background includes raw material sourcing, compound design, processing and testing with organic elastomers and silicone, including cellular rubber. He has broad expertise in process development, documentation, control and troubleshooting. He also has extensive experience in the review and analysis of test data from rubber compounds.
His consulting business has been conducted both domestically and internationally. It includes development and presentation of educational programs for individual companies and for professional organizations, colleges and universities. He also does hands on work with production companies to achieve improvements in their compounds and production processes. Lastly, he works with raw material suppliers to teach them how their products might be used in the rubber industry.
In March 2019, his book Sponge Rubber, An Introduction to Cellular Rubber was published by TechnoBiz as a companion reference for the course he also presents of the same name for the ACS Rubber Division and Akron Polymer Technical Services. He has also developed and presented a two other courses. An Introduction to Continuous Vulcanization, and Rubber Extrusion Technology for these organizations. He has also developed a course on Sponge Rubber in cooperation with the University of Akron and the High Institute for Elastomer Industries to be presented in Saudi Arabia. He has recorded a 4-segment video course on cellular rubber for Techno Biz.
Mr. Strong is married (Roberta) and resides in Northeast Ohio. He has a daughter and a stepson and step daughter + 3 grandchildren. In his spare time, he enjoys walking, reading, working with his wife in their flower beds/gardens and fostering senior rescue dogs.