A molding thermal expansion structure includes a thermoplastic material and a thermal expansion material, wherein the thermoplastic material is 50 wt % to 90 wt % based on a weight of the molding thermal expansion structure; the thermal expansion material is 50 wt % to 10 wt % based on a weight of the molding thermal expansion structure; wherein, the thermal expansion material is expanded from a foaming original material through a pre-foaming process; the thermoplastic material and the thermal expansion material are mixed to form a mixed material; the mixed material is thermally expanded to form a thermal expansion structure in a molding apparatus. The molding thermal expansion structure provided in the present invention could satisfy various needs of light-weighted products. A molding method of the thermal expansion structure is also provided herein.

Methods of recovering and/or recycling expanded polymer tooling, the methods including collecting expanded polymer tooling, reducing the collected expanded polymer tooling into smaller particles, treating the reduced expanded polymer tooling in order to yield an at least partially purified recovered polymer composition, and then collecting the at least partially purified recovered polymer composition. The at least partially purified recovered polymer composition can then be used to form new expandable polymer tooling.

A process is disclosed to recycle and/or formulate expandable plastic materials using a system (1) comprising: an extruder unit (10), a mixer-heat exchanger unit (20), said process comprising the steps of: melting in the extruder unit (10), cooling in the mixer-heat exchanger unit (20), and controlling the melt pressure by means of a melt pump unit (50), followed by granulation, extrusion, or injection molding, wherein a first expansion agent (81) is not degassed during a melt processing in the system (1) such that it is substantially contained in the granulated expandable plastic material (130) or used to form either the extruded, formed and expanded plastic material (140) or the molded expanded plastic article (150). The present invention also relates to a granulated expandable plastic material (130), an extruded, formed and expanded plastic material (140), and a molded expanded plastic article (150) obtainable by said process.

A device includes a heating zone having an inlet, and an outlet, a pump upstream of and in fluid communication with the heating zone, and capable of generating above-atmospheric pressure in the heating zone; an element for heating the heating zone; an expansion zone with an inlet and an outlet, said inlet of the expansion zone being connected to the outlet of the heating zone in such a way that a pressure drop is created, such that the expansion zone is at a lower pressure than the heating zone; and a back pressure generator downstream of the expansion zone configured to create a variable counter pressure in the expansion zone.

Expandable styrene resin particles include 2.0 wt % to 8.0 wt % of graphite, and the graphite has a mean particle size of 2.5 μm to 9 μm. The expandable styrene resin particles satisfy (i) a laser scattering intensity per unit solution concentration of the graphite is not less than 5 {%/(mg/ml)}/wt %, (ii) an area of the graphite per unit solution concentration of the graphite in 1 mm.sup.2 is not less than 55 ({mm.sup.2/mm.sup.2}/{g/g}), or (iii) when the expandable styrene resin particles are pre-expanded and are made into an expanded molded product having an expansion ratio of 40 times, a value (%/wt %) obtained by dividing, by the content of the graphite (wt %), a percentage of an area occupied by the graphite in a surface layer of the expanded molded product (%), a quotient of which is further multiplied by 100, is not less than 100.

A method of microcellular foam molding an article includes feeding plastic granules to a hopper; supplying a supercritical fluid (SCF) to the hopper to effuse through the plastic granules; conveying the effused plastic granules to a mixer; and conveying the effused plastic granules in the mixer to a mold of an injection molding machine to perform foam molding on the effused plastic granules to produce a foamed article. The mold is kept at 10-50° C. and 7-70 Mpa for a foaming time of 50-120 seconds.

A system and method operate on a first electronic device and a second electronic device. The first device has a control system and a cryptographic communications module. The second device has a key generator, a user interface, and a cryptographic communications module. The second device generates a single-mission cryptographic key that is securely programmed into the first device, and the first device is deployed to a remote location. The user interface receives a command for controlling the first device. The second device encrypts the command according to the cryptographic key, and transmits the encrypted command to the first device. The first device authenticates the command, decrypts it, and passes the decrypted command to the control system. The first device may be actively guided ordnance, and the second device may be a control element for controlling the actively guided ordnance. The key may be automatically obfuscated upon mission completion or termination.

The process for forming closed cell expanded low density polyethylene foam includes the steps of: providing a mixture including low density polyethylene pellets and an effective amount of hydrocarbon scavenger additives or degassing agents, such as glycerides; adding a primary blowing agent comprising one of liquid propane, liquid butane, and combinations thereof, to the mixture and gasifying the blowing agent to expand the low density polyethylene; forming the expanded low density polyethylene into sheets, curing the expanded low density polyethylene until 80%, generally at least 99%, of the primary blowing agent is dissipated from cells within the expanded low density polyethylene forming evacuated closed cell low density polyethylene sheets.

Pre-expanded polypropylene-based resin particles include a polypropylene-based resin. The polypropylene-based resin satisfies tan 0.32V+0.1, where tan represents a loss tangent at an angular frequency of 0.1 rad/s in dynamic viscoelastic behavior measurement at 200 C. and V represents a melt fracture take-up speed (m/min) at 200 C.

Low-density thermoplastic expandable microspheres are disclosed. Various low-density structures, in particular, sandwich panels, based on foam prepared from the low-density microspheres, are also disclosed. Process of preparing low-density polymeric microspheres, per se, and the corresponding low-density structures, based on the microsphere foam, are also disclosed.