SWE Detroit Trip

On March 16 -17, 2004, SWE hosted a group of students from Behrend, primarily from the School of Engineering and Engineering Technology, traveling to the Motor City to tour two molding companies. These companies were Gain Technologies and Battenfeld. Each company was involved in molding with gas assist technology.

At the Gain facility, they gave us an over view on the advantages of using gas assist technology as well as showed us a few examples of parts that utilize this technology that are in production today.

At the same facility, they were running a press to give a visible example of the process utilized. They pointed out the use of overspill channels to provide a longer gas channel in a modified CD holder. At the end of this process they can break off these overspills and regrind them for later use.

Later that day, the group traveled to the Battenfeld facility. The group was very impressed with the four thousand ton press that they had running. At the time, they were producing side skirts that you would find on current automobiles. The students were amazed by the size of the injection units that the machine required as well as the machine setup.

Once the tour was completed, Battenfeld gave a presentation detailing the differences of Gas Assist Molding and Water Assist Molding. They also presented some current applications for both of these processes. Seeing the companies running the equipment and technology helps us to much better understand the classroom lectures.

Overall, the tours made it worth the long bus rides there and back. Especially since we traveled in the St. Patrick’s blizzard and only got as far as Cleveland in the time it should have taken to get to Detroit!

Many thanks go out to the School of Engineering and Engineering Technology and the Student Activity Fee for funding the bus, to the Society of Women Engineers student chapter for sponsoring the trip, and to the Society of Plastics Engineers for their generous donation of meal money!