Abstract:
Gel in Polycarbonate is cause to generate streak on automobile headlight or lens. The example company doesn't have streak testing machine, but it has gel testing. This research aimed at exploring optimal parameter of film extruder machine setup for testing plastic gel of Polycarbonates, which used to produce automobile headlight and lens. Plastic gel that cause of streak was one of the most recent customer complaints resulting in decline in customer loyalty and cost of product returns. To reduce this customer complaint, experimental design was used to identify film extruder machine setup parameter that produced the greatest amount of plastic gel. Pilot studies indicate that the two most important factors influencing an amount of gel were the temperature and the speed of extruder. The temperature at 280°C, 285°C, and 290°C and the speed of extruder at 24 rpm, 26 rpm, and 28 rpm were studied. Thus, a two-factor with three-level factorial design was used. A factorial experiment with five replicates was performed to investigate the effect of three different levels of temperature and three different speeds of extruder on the amount of plastic gel. Results indicated that film extruder machine setup variables of temperature at 285°C with the speed of extruder at 26 rpm caused the great amount of plastic gel. Therefore this research would help to
reduce the potential cost of approximately 5,124,800 baht relating customer complaint and testing cost at Germany for each year.