Don Duvall Email and Phone Number

Don Duvall is a polymer materials scientist with over 50 years experience in the plastics industry. He specializes in engineering, testing and failure analysis of products manufactured from polymeric materials, especially those intended for long-term, load bearing applications. Over the course of his career, he has directed innumerable forensic engineering investigation projects involving the performance of thermoplastic polymer materials, including plastic piping, pipeline corrosion coating systems and geosynthetics. He directed similar projects concerned with performance issues of rubber products in a variety of applications. Early in his career he engaged in research and development of electrode separator films for use in alkaline batteries, and on product and process development of thermoplastic molding and extrusion compounds.Don has also been active in teaching in the fields of polymer science and failure analysis. He was for 25 years an adjunct instructor in the Metallurgical & Materials Engineering Department and the Mechanical, Materials & Aerospace Engineering Department at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He was one of the creators of the L.J. Broutman & Associates/Bodycote-Broutman Failure Analysis Seminar series presented in conjunction with the Society of Plastics Engineers. He was a member of the associate staff of the US DOT Transportation Safety Institute from 1987 through 2014, lecturing on plastic gas distribution piping system failure analysis.Don is a member of four ASTM Committees, D20 on Plastics, F17 on Plastic Piping Systems, D35 on Geosyntheics and E58 on Forensic Engineering. He is also a member of AWWA Standards Committee #263 on Polyolefin Piping. He is an Honored Service Member of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), having chaired one SPE Division and two Special Interest Groups.