Manisa, Turkey — Vestel AS Group invested in a complete roll stack line for its home appliances factory to produce plastic sheet for refrigerators doors and interior compartment linings.
The Turkish corporation bought the line, which consists of two extruders and a multi-touch roll stack, from Germany's Battenfeld-Cincinnati to make high impact polystyrene (HIPS) sheet.
The modern line lets Vestal reduce the thickness tolerance of the HIPS sheet by about 50 percent compared to existing lines with conventional roll stacks, according to a Battenfeld-Cincinnati news release. With a line output of 3,000 kilograms per hour, the annual cost savings are in six-digit euro figures, the release also says.
Two size-75 extruders plasticize the core layers of the boards, which are up to 6 millimeters thick and up to 1,200 mm wide, while a coextruder applies the glossy surface layer. From there, the melt passes through a flat-sheet die into the multi-touch roll stack with 2,400-mm-wide rolls.
"Thanks to a combination of a two-roll stack for pre-calibration with several re-calibration rolls, which ensure even surface contact with the rolls, it produces excellent semi-finished product attributes, that is, optimal flatness with narrow thickness tolerances," the release says. "While the excellent flatness is important for further processing of the boards by thermoforming, the reduction of thickness tolerances means hard cash."
Battenfeld-Cincinnati also installed a comparable sheet line for a German customer at its production plant in Poland. The line can vary the thickness range of the semi-finished products being made from 1-6 mm and it integrates a winder for sheet up to 2-mm thickness and a stacker for thicker boards.
In addition to extruders and extrusion lines for sheet, Battenfeld-Cincinnati offers equipment for applications in pipe, profile, thermoforming sheet and pelletizing markets.
For more information, go to www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com.