Italian hot runner manufacturer HRSflow GmbH, a division of mold maker Inglass SpA, is showing a range of product developments aimed at improving the injection molding process.
HRSflow's largest market is automotive — a sector that also taps into the company's early beginnings when founder Maurizio Bazzo was making plastic lighting molds for the automotive market.
"It was a natural fit for us to begin with the automotive market, and we've been branching out over the last few years into things like environmental, transportation, packaging, consumer goods [and] luggage," Robert Harvey, sales director for North America, said during an interview at the company's booth.
At K, the company is showcasing a family mold for the production of high-quality upper and lower vehicle bumper parts in one shot.
"What we're showing here in this case is the ability to fill two different parts, two different part weights," Harvey said of the application. "We can pack and fill these cavities independently — a different process for that cavity and a different process for that cavity — where in the past when you're molding off of the injection piston, that injection piston dictates the process for all cavities and all gates. We have changed this."
The bumper parts are molded from polypropylene with 14 percent talc. The mold is equipped with a 21-nozzle, electric-driven valve gate hot runner system with two angled nozzles. The application uses the company's FlexFlow technology, which it says enables "flawless surfaces without any flow mark" as well as an accurate control of deflection on each part.
"FlexFlow is changing injection molding because we are processing at the gate and not at the injection piston," he said.
A second family mold shows a hot runner system for a one-shot production of three polypropylene parts for a car interior door module. The mold has an eight-nozzle, electric-driven valve gate hot runner system designed for sequential injection molding, enabling cycle times of approximately 55 seconds.
The company's HRScool is also being shown. For hot runner injection molding, it allows operators to completely eliminate water cooling for common automotive applications. The company said the design minimizes the heat transfer from the hot tool plate to the cylinder, while a thermally conductive cover maximizes heat dissipation from the cylinder to the cold clamping plate.
Also at the booth: HRSflow is featuring an extended portfolio of compact cylinders. New to the lineup is a series of pneumatic cylinders that the company says can be easily installed without removing the hot runner from the mold plate. Additional products include compact hydraulic cylinders in a basic design as well as a dampened version.
In nozzle news, the company is presenting the SA series, its smallest of screwed-in hot runner nozzles for very low shot weights and compact cutouts. The series is designed to process small technical components and enables optimal thermal conditions for high flexibility in processing plastics.