Dr. Gary Menary

 Professor, Queen's University, Belfast and CTO Blow Moulding Technologies, Ltd.

Presentation Description:

Co-presenting with Max Rodrigues of PepsiCo, this presentation will include a unique lab scale stretch blow molding device for fast tracking preform/bottle design that enables a 50% reduction in lead time for new bottle concepts.   The machine, known as BLOWscan brings together 25 years of R&D in stretch blow molding that enables the industry the ability to quickly evaluate new materials, act as a quality control tool for preform production and through the combination of high speed video and a patent pending 3D printed mold technology, the ability to produce and evaluate prototype bottle concepts cheaply and quickly. 

The patent pending rapid prototyping technology represents a novel approach to making unit-cavity blow molds, utilizing heat resistant 3-D printer materials combined with an aluminum quick-change shell.  Through trials, the mold set demonstrated it can produce bottles of comparable performance as a metal mold, with enough longevity to consistently produce thousands of bottles at conventional production rates. 

A series of case studies will be presented demonstrating how BLOWscan was able to quantify the difference in heating absorption and blowing behavior of bottles with different percentage loading of RPET and how it was used to fast track the design, development and manufacture of a new bottle concept for PepsiCo. 

Speaker Biography:

Dr. Gary Menary leads a research group focusing on stretch blow moulding at Queen’s University and is Chief Technical Officer of Blow Moulding Technologies. He has been researching stretch blow moulding for the past 20 years.  The main focus of the research is to reduce material and energy usage in ISBM by developing a fundamental understanding of the manufacturing process using skills in simulation, material modelling and characterization, experimental mechanics and instrumentation. This expertise has been developed from a series of projects funded from Europe, UK Government and industry.  Dr. Menary is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Materiel Forming. HE has been on the Board of Directors of the European Association of Material Forming (ESAFORM) since 2006 and was the ESAFORM conference chairman in 2011.