By Bill Bregar
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: July 9, 2014 10:25 am ET
Updated: July 9, 2014 10:28 am ET
John Beaumont
ERIE, PA. — John Beaumont said his company’s Therma-flow Moldometer can conduct more than 100 molding characterizations on materials, by injection molding the material through a special mold cartridge cut with channels of flow geometries in various sizes.
Beaumont Technologies Inc. of Erie makes the Therma-flow, which is not yet commercial. He said the company is not selling the accompanying software, but instead gives it away to customers of the company’s resin characterization work.
“It’s designed to be a first-method,” Beaumont said. He added that the Moldometer also can give you an idea of the amount of pressure, in pounds per square inch, needed to fill a mold with specific material.
Beaumont, a professor at Penn State Erie’s Plastics Engineering Technology program, discussed material characterization at the Innovation and Emerging Plastics Technologies Conference.
Beaumont Technologies bought a Sodick injection press earlier this year to do the material characterization. | 
