Rubber Formulation and Polymer Coatings Engineering Expert

Expertise

• Polymer dielectric coatings engineering directed to customer custom applications, process development of, new products release and reliability qualifications of over twenty years.
• Rubber testing, formulation, mixing, and trial experience.
• Rubber and polymers problem solving and invention development.
• Polymer science, rheology, mechanical properties of particle filled composites, testing of rubber applied to formulation and mixing for calendaring and extrusion specific to tire manufacturing.
• Current FTIR diamond ATR analysis of ingredients for rubber compounds directed to passenger and light truck tires, including spectral subtraction and environmental compensation.
• Customer fulfillment; new products trials, reliability, thermal modeling, delivery schedule and manufacturing introduction.

Focused Areas

• Natural and Synthetic rubber rheology testing.
• Rubber mix trial with Banbury 620 L.
• Polymer dielectric and photosensitive coating.
• Customer fulfillment-design, reliability, and thermal modeling and delivery schedule.
• Hands on reduction to practice of 4 U.S. patents.
• Downstream evaluation in extrusion processes.
• Mixing of particle fillers with various rubbers.

Materials

• Natural Rubber, Polybutadiene, SBR, Butyl Rubber (chlorobutyl and bromobutyl).
• Polyisoprene, Silica, Magnesium Oxide, Polybutadiene, Amorphous silica, various carbon blacks, antiozonates, curing agents, accelerators, rubber makers sulfur, and peptizers.
• Prevulcanization agents and EPDM rubber, Poly aryl ether benzimidizole, PELG, PVC, Poly vinyl phenol, TNS negative photoresist, NMP,Polyimides: BPDA-PDA, Ultem, Polyimide-siloxane, photosensitive polyimide, thermid 6015, and thermid 6010.

Experience

Undisclosed Company, 2012 - Present

• Internal Technical Service and Sr. Process Engineer for formulation and mixing, passenger tire plant of a high volume passenger and light truck tire manufacturer.
• Oversee compounding and high volume mixing of rubber.
• Formulation of rubber compounds for over 10 different tire components.
• Perform aging studies via rheological measurements.
• Create formulas to optimize cost by replacing carbon black in 3 compounds and qualified; three carbon black and one sulfur supplier.
• Author reports documenting power curves and mixing parameters for over 20 trials.
• Systematically determined reclaim chlorobutyl was causing elongation to break and modulus out of tolerance conditions.
• Managed material supplier to tighten specifications for TC90.
• Returned to cost savings associated with the reclaimed rubber.
• Reduced reclaim material due to lumps by over 80%. Qualified and optimized mixing process parameters for Halobutyl rubber formulations for inner liner applications to reduce cured lump defects in finished goods. Used C13 solid state NMR to determine the exact polymer character of the lumps.
• Created formulas and mixing process parameters to optimize downstream processing performance for thin sidewall low rolling resistance applications. Reduced die cut defects in extruded sidewall by over 60% by formulating with increased natural rubber.
• Applied rheological test for Scorch, Mooney Viscosity, Tensile Tests, TC50 and TC 90 tests for lot acceptance-Specified FTIR, TGA-MS, solid state C13 NMR and SEM elemental analysis to solve recipe and formulation issues.
• Qualified mixer tooling and 2 materials directed to cost savings of $150 thousand to date.
• Seasonally optimized tire carcass compounds for summer and winter factory conditions.
• Responsible for daily rubber formulation and rheology analysis using Alpha instruments.
• Ensure mixing process optimization to improve coverage of rubber to bodyply fabric by optimizing Mooney viscosity and green strength. Increased natural rubber to improve green tensile strength.
• Review and manage all materials testing and specification. Devised blending procedure to use off batches caused by low specific gravity. Applied rule of mixtures to find final in tolerance specific gravity.
• Material qualification - transfer to manufacturing form Akron Research-worked with various chemical and carbon black supply vendors to qualify their materials for cost reduction and second source.

Henniges Automotive, Quality, Research and Development Center, Rockford, TN, 2011

• Mechanical testing and environmental testing of co-extruded and molded EPDM Rubber seals.
• Compression, hardness, tensile, environment, chemical resistance testing of EPDM automotive seals subjected to reliability stress conditions.
• Optical microscope characterization of coatings on EPDMR rubber seals.
• Data collection, sampling, and associated statistical analysis.
• Interpretation of GD&T drawings, ISO, ASTM, Ford, GM, BMW, Nissan specifications and test procedures.
• Test improvement and development to reduce time, cost and to make more realistic of the field.

Roane State Community College, Oak Ridge National Labs, Oak Ridge, TN, Instructor, 2011

• College Instructor, for the Halcyon Commercialization Center, AMTEC, Polymer Chemistry and Carbon Fiber Technology.
• Developed Microsoft Power Point instructional material for delivery of basic polymer chemistry.
• Developed hands-on activities to reinforce lecture concepts of viscosity, blending, and material selection.
• Delivered leading edge, current Carbon Fiber precursor process technology and economics
• Introduced concepts of design for manufacturability, quality, reliability and cost.

Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, NY, 2008 - 2010

• Provided traditional lecture and lab instruction for 2 Chemistry courses.
• Tutored students in Remedial Chemistry and Biology.

IBM Corporation, Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, 2006 - 2008

Intellectual Property Department

• Reviewed over 20 patent disclosures per month (over 200) to determine for further action.
• Led brainstorming sessions generating over 200 ideas developed into 15 patent applications.
• Drafted 10 research patent applications.
• Performed Landscape studies to determine inventor-ship resulting in JDA partner dropping their suit.
• Completed patent study requested by the current head of USPTO directed to creating air gaps between semiconductor lines to improve performance.
• Awarded six U.S. Patents directed to materials and applications for Microelectronics Packaging.
• Program managed the patent application preparation by outside counsel of 45 dockets.

Process Development Department

• Developed high tolerance dielectric spin apply coating process, applied six sigma statistics including, design of experiments, process capability and SPC statistics to optimize thickness und uniformity.
• Developed iteratively with DuPont material supplier to define formulation requirement as percent solids, viscosity, residual amine and packaging.
• Assessed residual stress in spin applied film to optimize cure profile by x-ray diffraction of coated pre-x-rayed Si wafer.
• Defined spin apply process window speeds for 3 formulations utilizing 6 Sigma Process Capability and Design of Experiments.
• Surface plasma treatment and adhesion promoter process window optimization using ESCA analysis.
• Wrote and performed process equipment qualification tests for first of kind high viscosity pump, robotic spin apply tooling and combination material packaging and dispensing system tooling.

Failure Analysis and Corrective Action

• Identified solvent induced cracking of dielectric coating, suggested and qualified alternative material.
• Identified conditions leading to solder squirting through coating, developed coating cure to 100% yield by optimizing imidization.
• Determined root of mouse bites in CMOS lines etched withHCl performing a Sputter Auger Study.
• Led a team of engineers to Canadian IBM manufacturing facility to sample inspect, develop rework process, and establish defect criteria for first IBM OEM ceramic Semiconductor microelectronic.
• Tested and assured the hermeticity of first thin film - glass ceramic MCM chip carrier for the IBM ES9000 mainframe-Provided a model identifying Xe as a gas hermeticity probe that would indicate the presence of pore and not diffuse through thin films- Allowed the plan to fill with oil to proceed.
• Discovered through sequential testing through the process the shorts found in smt capacitors were due to burn in post reflow and join-worked with supplier to burn in decoupling capacitors prior to shipment and change the rated voltage from 16 to 10 V until a dielectric was developed to mitigate the interlevel shorting.

Product Management and Quality

• Received site quality award for qualifying polymer solution re-use for flip chip 121 chip MCM ceramic chip carrier vacuum impregnation process. Saved over $7 million in material cost.
• Developed product specifications for second source flip chip single chip ceramic ball grid.
• Released BOM's, GD&T drawings, customer specific specifications and OEM flip chip carrier designs to manufacturing
• Dispositional non-conforming product and developed rework procedures to reclaim product. Received IBM monetary Award for reclaiming over $1 million of packaging hardware.
• Qualified first thin film polymer dielectric on a multichip ceramic semiconductor chip carrier and associated suppliers.
• Qualified supplier to deliver first 100 nF flip chip ceramic low inductance decoupling capacitor.
• Qualified material and process for first backside polymer corrosion barrier layer for a multichip composite package.

Program Management

• Managed customer expectations through monthly meetings at the director level.
• Managed new product introduction to high volume IBM manufacturing and associated team meetings.
• Managed the build and reliability testing for products and processes gating general availability.
• Managed and provided cost input for requests for quotes and requests for information for OEM hardware.
• Applied Microsoft Office to create key check points and program dependencies.

Business Development

• Business development monetizing IBM Patent Portfolio resulting in a $2 million dollar sale.
• Categorized for sale total IBM life science patent portfolio, including genome and laser surgery patents.
• Data mined IBM portfolio into logical, targeted clusters of patent for associated value presentations.
• Used Delphion, USPTO search site, EPO search site to perform patent searches and landscape studies.

State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, Professor, 2005

• Instructed Chemistry graduate course in Polymer Chemistry.

Honors & Publications

Credentials

• 6 Sigma Green Belt Prep - Metallurgy for Non Metallurgists - ASM, ORAU, Oak Ridge, TN Piedmont Community College, NC
• Tools: Microsoft; Office, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, Minitab, Laboratory management software, Delphion, Lotus Notes, Deconvolution software, GD&T, Design of Experiments, SPC on Minitab 16, 6Sigma Principles and statistics, Polarizing optical microscopy, Optical Microscope Image Enhancement Software, MTS and Intron instrumentation and associated software, FTIR, DSC, DMTA, TGA, and various Alpha Technologies Rheometers.
• Customer presentation, specification development, 6 Sigma, Lean MFG., and DOE.
• Additional course work: Chemical Physics, Instrumental Analysis, Physical Chemistry
• Six Sigma Statistics, Design of Experiments.

Patents

• Inventor - Co Inventor of numerous U.S. Patents

Education

• M.S. Material Science-Polymer, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
• B.S. Biology, (Cum Laude), University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA