VICARIA: An e-Learning System for Risk Assessment

An e-learning system in the risk assessment engineering domain has been developed by a consortium led by Ligeron® in the context of the Vicaria project (Leonado da Vinci – N° PP 118018). The e-learning platform: www.vicaria.fr has been implemented and hosted by OVH in compliance with SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) standard. The Vicaria modules contents have been defined according to an investigation performed in different European countries, particularly in France, to gather the user requirements. The Vicaria contents dedicated mainly to the environmental risks and ICPE are now available for use in French. The issue of the performed work and the e-learning system specifics are partly summarized in this pape

Impact properties analysis of rotationally molded polyethylene and polypropylene for a wide range of temperatures

Rotational molding is an established and growing manufacturing method for large, hollow plastic components. In this work the impact properties of rotationally molded Polyethylene (PE) and Polypropylene (PP) were tested at temperature in the range of -40 °C to 30 °C. Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) was performed to analyse the measured impact properties of PP and PE plastics. For PP, a very good relationship was found between peak impact strength and the loss modulus curve obtained in DMTA analysis. A relationship between density, β peak height and peak impact strength was found for PE which is different from previous findings in the literature. It is concluded that further work should focus on developing an understanding of the PE material's microstructure in order to more fully understand its impact properties

An investigation of low velocity impact properties of rotationally moulded skin-foam-skin sandwich structure

In this study, the low velocity impact properties of rotationally moulded skin-foam-skin sandwich structures were investigated experimentally since there is a need for a greater understanding of the impact behaviour of these composites in service to extend the range of their applications. Polyethylene rotationally moulded sandwich structures were manufactured at various skin and core layer thickness combinations and tested using an instrumented low velocity drop weight impact testing machine at 20J to 100J impact energy levels, at room temperature. This allowed the identification of the impact response, failure mode, the effects of the skin and core layer thickness on impact resistance. Force-deflection curves, maximum force, contact time, maximum deflection versus impact energy curves were analysed. Samples were seen to fail due to the indentation dart piercing the upper and lower skins, with crushing and consolidation seen in the core foamed layer. Delamination at the core/skin interface was not observed. It was found that fracture initiates from the lower skin and then continues to grow to the upper skin via the foamed core layer. The impact resistance was noted to increase with increasing skin and core layer thickness, though an increase in skin layer thickness had a greater contribution than an increase in the core layer thickness. Keywords: Rotational moulding, skin-foam-skin, sandwich, low velocity impact, PE