Battenfeld Gloucester touts soft film air ring
Battenfeld Gloucester Engineering Co. Inc. is way cool, no it's ... UltraCool.
The new UltraCool air ring boosts output by 30 percent, according to the company in Gloucester, Mass. Battenfeld wanted to develop an air ring for soft films, typical of some of the lower-density metallocene resins, but the company was able to improve performance across a broad range of materials.
The new design is easy to adjust, with settings that are repeatable. UltraCool gives good bubble stability, with less lay-flat variation.
The new design also is self-recovering, so that a hole or other problem in the film does not lose the bubble.
After final trials at six U.S. film producers, Battenfeld Gloucester will include the UltraCool ring on future blown film lines.
Tel. (978) 281-1800, fax (978) 282-9111.
Windsor's retrofit runs 6 components
Windsor Kunststofftechnologie GmbH, which retrofits injection units to do multicomponent molding, says its latest installation is a cell to run six components - so that three-color parts, in four different combinations, can be produced within a single production cycle.
Windsor sold the package to a European cosmetics company, which it did not identify.
The cell includes Windsor's PlugxPress Plus 4 system of four retrofitted injectors, which get installed vertically on a standard two-color machine. This enables the molder to produce three-color parts at the same time in four different color combinations in one cycle.
Windsor is based in Hanau, Germany.
Tel. +49 (6181) 9003-0, fax +49 (6181) 9003-40, e-mail [email protected] windsor-gmbh.de.
HPM designs system for packaging sheet
HPM, a division of Taylor's Industrial Services LLC, has developed and sold a new sheet extrusion system, called the Universal, designed for packaging sheet.
HPM is marketing the sheet line systems for the thermoforming and packaging industries. Universal lines can run polystyrene, polypropylene and PET in a thickness range from 0.01-0.08 inch. Finished widths are 36 inches, 48 inches and 60 inches.
HPM can supply the systems with extruders in screw diameters of 31/2 inches, 41/2 inches, 130 millimeters and 6 inches. The systems can be set up for monolayer or coextrusion.
HPM is based in Mount Gilead, Ohio.
Tel. (419) 949-2206, fax (419) 946-2473, e-mail [email protected]
Maag claims long life for Micronex filter
Maag Pump Systems Textron Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., has added a candle-design filter to its flat- screen pack on its piston-type screen changers, increasing the filtration surface area 30 times that of a flat screen.
Because it has more area, Maag said the Micronex screen changer will have a longer life, with more time in between screen replacements, and a lower drop in pressure.
Micronex allows the use of either wire mesh or sintered metal fibers, which capture gels and increase dirt-holding capacity.
Tel. (704) 716-9025, fax (704) 716-9001, e-mail [email protected]
Krauss-Maffei sells KMD extruder to Sirea
Krauss-Maffei Kunststofftechnik GmbH has booked orders for nearly 50 of its new twin-screw, counter-rotating extruders with a 30-to-1 length-to-diameter ratio, since it rolled out the machines last fall at K 2001.
The Munich-based machinery maker recently announced one sale - of a KMD 114-36D extruder - to Sirea srl, which makes polyethylene and PVC pipe and fittings in Barbiano, Italy. Sirea officials liked the higher output of the machine without pulsation, the longer life of the specially treated screws and barrel, and the user-friendly C4 controller.
KM said the 36 L/D twin screw extruders are not simply stretched-out versions of its 26 L/D machines. Unlike the typical single venting zone, the new machines use two venting zones. Early in the process, when the vinyl is still a powdery mass, gases are allowed to escape through two long venting slits in the barrel. Because air acts as an insulator, removing it so early significantly increases heat transfer within the resin, Krauss-Maffei said.
After additional compression and heating, the material reaches a second venting area, where a vacuum sucks out the remaining volatile components.
Krauss-Maffei's U.S. headquarters, Krauss-Maffei Corp., is based in Florence, Ky.
Tel. (859) 283-4309, fax (859) 283-0290, e-mail [email protected]
Firm opening center for extrusion support
Davis-Standard Corp. is creating an extrusion support center at its Pawcatuck, Conn., headquarters to give customer support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Customers get access to a fully staffed, in-house center for professional advice, immediate parts shipment and around-the-clock scheduling of travel by service technicians.
All engineers at the help center must have extensive knowledge of Rockwell, Eurotherm, Yaskowa, Control Techniques, ABB, Siemens and other drive brands, and understand extrusion electronics and control loops.
The staff also has access to all Davis-Standard drawings and schematics.
Access to the new service costs $3,000 for customers within the United States and $5,000 for international customers, per site, per year.
Tel. (860) 599-6147, e-mail [email protected]
Colormax showing feeder at Interplas
At Interplas 2002, Colormax Ltd. of Telford, England, will unveil the Posimax additive feeder, with a new positive-displacement, rotating-channel feeding mechanism to control the flow of material, such as colorants, by volume.
There are no screws or chambers, just one moving part that is easy to take apart for cleaning.
Interplas 2002 will be held Sept. 30-Oct. 4 in Birmingham, England.
Tel. (856) 256-3285, (856) 582-3937, e-mail [email protected]
Hosokawa patents crystallizing process
Hosokawa Bepex Corp. recently commercialized its patented Under Water Crystallizer for continuous large-scale crystallizing of high-copolymer polyesters.
The unit is designed to process sticky, slow-to-crystallize copolymer pellets that can agglomerate and remain tacky between the glass transition point and the final crystallization point.
``Our Under Water Crystallizer suspends the pellets in hot water and gently agitates them with paddles connected to a rotating shaft,'' said Chuck Stock, product specialist for the firm's polymer group. ``This method has proved superior to either pneumatic or mechanical agitation using direct or indirect heating, as both these methods allow agglomeration or pellet deformation.''
Water as a heat-transfer medium promotes uniform heating of the copolymer pellets, said the Minneapolis company. Water also lubricates the pellets.
Hosokawa Bepex has installed a pilot scale unit at its testing center.
Tel. (612) 331-4370, fax (612) 627-1444.
Rotex adds to line of pellet screeners
Cincinnati-based Rotex Inc. added two new models to its line of plastic pellet screeners, with capacities of up to 3,000 pounds per hour and 5,000 pounds per hour. Rotex markets the screening devices to compounders.
The screeners use a horizontal gyratory/reciprocating motion, and an exclusive, patent-pending ``dual velocity'' drive with a positive displacement stroke.
The resulting motion is four times as long as vibratory screeners, so the pellets get spread evenly across the full width of the unit.
Since the Rotex screener contains no vertical component, long pellets, ``toothpicks'' and jackstraws remain flat and cannot upend and pass through.
Tel. (800) 453-2321, fax (513) 346-5454, e-mail [email protected]
Company to distribute simulation software
Heard of virtual reality? Check out virtual compounding, from Extrusioneering International Inc.
The Randoph, N.J., company is the exclusive North American distributor of the Twin-Screw Extruder Simulator (TXS), developed by PolyTech Inc. of Branford, Conn.
Extrusioneering compares TXS to simulation software for injection molding. TXS simulates the compounding process used by most polymers, with up to three reinforcing materials, such as glass fibers, or nonreinforcing fillers such as talc. The software also can accommodate up to three liquid additives.
The user creates a ``virtual'' extruder, drawing on a database of more than 50 commercial extruders. The computer simulates the entire process, including solids feeding, melting, mixing, venting and die pressurization.
The program also contains a rule-based ``expert system'' that analyzes the screw design for problems such as incomplete melting, torque limitations or vent flooding.
In addition, PolyTech recently created a reactive extrusion module for TXS that can simulate different reactions within the extruder, such as polymerization or peroxide degradation.
Extrusioneering said scale-up costs are significantly reduced using the software, which uses the same material rheology to simulate the pilot-scale process on a larger extruder.
``The cost savings can be dramatic for compounders running expensive raw materials and for compounders with larger-scale operations,'' said Extrusioneering President Adam Dreiblatt.
Tel. (973) 895-4088, fax (973) 895-4391.
Hamilton Avtec Inc. unveils granulators
Hamilton Avtec Inc. of Mississauga, Ontario, introduces AH Vectra Series granulators, silent and low-speed granulators for beside-the-press use. The cutting chamber consists of two double-edged jaw cutters that first break up the sprues and parts, so they are pre-sized, allowing the coarse feed to be pelletized by toothed rollers, which produces pellets of equal size. No screen is required.
Tel. (905) 568-1133, fax (905) 568-0785, e-mail [email protected]