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Course Dates
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- 13-14 May 2026
- 16-17 September 2026
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Course overview
In today’s plastics manufacturing environment, the cost of production issues, inefficient processes, and quality rejections can quickly erode margins. That’s why our Exploring Plastics Extrusion course is designed to help you - and your team - take control of the extrusion process, make better decisions, and avoid costly mistakes. This classroom-based training focuses on understanding and optimising single screw extrusion – with practical insights you can apply immediately.
(This course will concentrate on the single screw extrusion process, both within the extruder and downstream. Areas such as compounding (single and twin screw) rheology, pipe extrusion, film, sheet, cable and PVC profiles will be addressed in short modules.)
Learning outcomes
- Spot and solve common extrusion faults before they escalate into downtime
- Improve product quality and consistency across runs
- Scale up R&D projects with confidence
- Make informed choices on equipment purchases
- Improve communication with suppliers, customers, and internal teams
- Understand how different polymers behave during extrusion - and why
Course content
- The Basic Extrusion Process: What are we trying to achieve? Densification, Mixing, Compounding, Reinforcement, Reactive Processing, or the production of a particular shape.
- Extrusion Theory: Feeding, Melting, and Pumping processes in single and twin screw machines, and the energy balance of the process.
- Rheology: Its influence on the extrusion process.
- Extrusion Design: Aspects of design, choice and purchase of equipment.
- Twin Screw Extrusion: Different types of twin screw, their uses and compounding optimisation
- Mixing: Various mixing techniques exist, add on mixing heads, barrier screws and modular kneading elements.
- Scale-up: Sizing of a machine from laboratory trials, scale-up, and choice of equipment.
- Downstream: Compound, pipe, film, sheet, cable sheathing, profiles.
- Trouble shooting: Fault finding, practical solutions to common problems, i.e. probable causes of surging, melt fracture, etc., difficulties encountered in handling rework, materials, feeding systems etc.
Who will benefit?
- Process/production engineers
- Technical managers
- Personnel involved in quality control
- Customer/technical services
- Those responsible for selling or purchasing extrusion equipment
Presenter information
- Jonathan Lea, Plastic Consultant - Extrusion Specialist
What our delegates say
"Very helpful and highly knowledgeable"
Gerard Eaton (Hozelock Ltd)
Mike Baillon (Stretch Polytech)
Gain CPD credits
Smithers is an IOM3 Quality Assured training provider and our courses are approved towards professional development.
