Week 5

 Welcome to Week 5 Blog!

18 May 2021

Despite the rising cases in the community, it has not stopped us in our learning for ICPD and this week our group would be bringing you the things that we learned about Design for Materials. Without further delay, let us begin, shall we?

We begin the lesson by looking at a few case studies of existing products and how it's material has been changed over the years to achieve the desirable attributes that are wanted. An example is shown below.

Figure 1: First-ever invented Hair Dryer

Figure 2: Dyson Hairdryer (2019)

From these examples, it can be seen how a simple product like the Hair Dryer has changed over the years and the material used also changed from something bulky to lightweight now. However, this change in material has not altered the functionality of the Hair Dryer at all. 

After the case study, our team was tasked to do a simple activity on finding a material that can be a direct replacement of another in an existing product without any design change as well as finding a use for this material in an existing product that is made possible only by a change in design. The activity done is as shown below.

 

Design for Materials – Worksheet for Activity

Class:	DCHE/FT/2A/05	Group:	3
Name of material	NatureFlexTM
Chemical Name	Cellulose (C6H10O5)n
General Description	NatureFlex™ is a range of speciality packaging films developed by Innovia Films which is made from renewable wood pulp and sourced from managed plantations to offer packaging material options that give strong environmental support towards increasing consumer demand for more ‘environmentally friendly’ packaging.
General Properties	– High heat resistance – Naturally anti-static – Dimensional stability under chill conditions – Superb dead-fold – Good barrier to moisture, mineral oil, gases and aromas
Opportunities	Consider using the silver grade to produce food wrap paper that reveals a silver colour when opened, or simply use this eco grade for any packaging that requires a silver metallised aesthetic.
·         Information extracted from material database provided by SP Library https://ichatspedu.sharepoint.com/teams/digitalrepository/lib/Lists/Chris%20Lefteri%20Design%20Material%20Library/Attachments/9/NatureFlex.pdf
Discuss among the group how this material can be used as a direct replacement to a material in an existing product without any significant changes in the design For food wraps, instead of using polyethylene as the material use NatureFlex as the material for production as it has a better barrier to moisture, and it is also has a high heat resistance. NatureFlex is also environmentally friendly as it is biodegradable, renewable, and recyclable.
Discuss among the group how this material can be used to enhance the functionality of an existing product through some changes in the design.                  We can use NatureFlex on ceramic bowls to increase its property on heat resistance so that when hot soup is being filled in it, the user would still be able to carry it from one location to another without the use of a tray. NatureFlex has a good heat resistant, however it is not hard enough to fully replace the Ceramic Bowl fully as it is only just a film, so the group has decided to only use it as a coating so that the Ceramic Bowl is able to enjoy the property highlighted, which is heat resistant.

Reflection:

After the lesson in Week 5, we learnt that there are many suitable alternative materials that can be used to change a product function and design. The group learnt how to change the design of the product to meet the needs of the material selected. With this knowledge, we could now effectively select suitable materials for the egg maker in the future.