The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 21, 1996
Filed:
Jun. 14, 1994
Anthony J Bur, Rockville, MD (US);
Charles L Thomas, Salt Lake City, UT (US);
United States of America as represented by the Secretary of Commerce, Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for monitoring the crystallinity and shrinkage of a olymeric resin during molding in which light is introduced into the mold cavity, from an optical fiber through a light permeable window, transmitted through the resin in the mold, reflected from the opposite side of the mold, collected again by the optical fiber sensor, and the attenuation of the light is analyzed to detect mold filling, the onset of polymer crystallization, and separation of the polymeric material from the mold wall due to shrinkage, which separation also produces the geometry of an interferometer which can be used to detect shrinkage and to measure the rate of shrinkage by counting the minima of interference fringes.