A DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS STUDY ON THE FACTORS AFFECTING VARIABILITY IN THE MELT INDEX MEASUREMENT

摘要

Melt index (MI) is universally accepted as the primary specification in the thermoplastics industry. The standard according to which the MI measurement is made is ASTM D-1238. However, some variation in the MI measurement is possible, even when all ASTM D-1238 specifications are met. A thorough understanding of the sources and magnitude of variation is essential, since measurement error can have significant economic implications. Error in the MI measurement can cause a resin lot (about 190,000 pounds) to be erroneously classified as off-spec (leading to a loss of over US