Strictly-Extrusion

Recently introduced by Wayne Machine and Die Co, is a new line of Yellow Jacket Blown Film Extrusion Equipment, which is certified to meet international standards including, but not limited to, “CE” marking for the European Community and “C-ETL” marking for Canada. Yellow Jacket Blown Film lines are specifically designed for laboratory, pilot and small production applications. The new lines are outfitted with control systems that can be configured to operate on a wide variety of global voltages, and contain screw, barrel and die designs and materials designed to assist in consistently processing thermoplastics while overcoming variances due to country of origin. The lines consist of a single or twin screw extruder, spiral blown film die, air ring with blower, blown film tower with upper and lower nip rolls, dual razor slitters with scoring roll, air chuck electronic torque winder and dual reel scrap takeup system. All systems are available with complete PC-based data acquisition systems.

Dutch Pipelife BV, a 50:50 joint venture of Belgian plastics giant Solvay and Austrian building materials group Wienerberger Baustoffindustrie AG was unable to escape the difficult market environment in Europe and the US last year. As Wienerberger notes in its annual report for 2001, the pipemaker suffered “volume losses” and “significant declines in earnings.” Operating EBIT of Wienerberger´s pipe and roof division, in which Pipelife is consolidated, tumbled 45% against 2000 to EUR 14.4m. Divisional sales fell 3% to EUR 435m and accounted for 28% of Wienerberger group turnover.
Output of Pipelife´s 31 production plants in 20 countries worldwide declined 3% last year to 187,000 t. As part of a restructuring scheme, plants at Gölzau and Haltern in Germany will be closed in order to improve capacity utilisation at the remaining German site at Ekern. Earnings in Germany were heavily hit by the closure costs and a 20% fall in volumes. France, on the other hand, was able to maintain its sales volumes for plastic pipes, but felt the impact of lower prices. By merging two plants in Scandinavia and increasing specialisation, Wienerberger said Pipelife was able to considerably increase productivity and generate satisfactory earnings there.
While eastern Europe results were mixed, profitability in southern Europe improved appreciably – due especially to the successful restructuring in Spain. Pipelife has also been able to establish itself as one of the leading suppliers of plastic pipe systems in China, and is now benefiting “to an above-average extent” from market growth there.
In 2002, Pipelife is expected to “significantly improve” its earnings power due not least to the various streamlining and development activities. For the first quarter, Wienerberger reported that sales of its pipe and roof division fell 9% to EUR 81.7m due to continuing weakness in Germany, while EBITDA rose 40% to EUR 70m.

Designed for advanced rubber and plastic applications extruded simultaneously and in the same tooling, the Syncroflow Series is now available exclusively from Guill Tool, USA. The plastics can be run on the outside layer because the Syncroflow tooling is designed with a barrier that insulates and separates the extruded materials from each other. This extra layer facilitates the processing of two materials within a wide range of processing temperatures. With a fully adjustable design, Syncroflow allows for separate concentricity and gum space adjustment on each layer. Manufactured with 420 stainless steel, the Syncroflow design has a proven outstanding flow pattern for low volume extrusion, and all the components are designed to hold tight/close tolerances. The new Syncroflow is available in standard sizes from 3 to 153 mm diameter.

UK PVC building board manufacturer Everwhite has announced a Euro 3.3m three-year investment programme for its manufacturing site at Aberdare, in Wales. The company, which manufactures more than 40 soffit, fascia, cladding board, architrave and window sill designs, expects the investment to help it double sales to Euro 23.7m. Sales for this year are expected to reach Euro 12.6m.The Euro 3.3m spending programme, which includes a Euro 950,000 regional selective assistance grant from the National Assembly of Wales, covers production equipment and an expansion of its production floorspace.

UK-based Filmcast Extrusions has taken its first trial orders for a new fresh-food co-extruded PP wrapping film that it claims will eliminte misting of packaged products such as pre-prepared salads and vegetables. The film incorporates a modified internal layer, which controls water droplet nucleation on the film surface. It is one of a number of engineered packaging films developed on Filmcast’s new five-layer Battenfeld co-extruded cast PP extrusion line, supplied by SMS Film Technology as part of a £5m investment in the company’s film production capability. Other developments include a paper-like film for printed label production, including in-mould labels and a freezer film that retains flexibility down to -40ÞC. Filmcast also claims significantly greater consistency in its cast synthetic papers as opposed to those produced by film blowing. Thickness variations range from 10-15% for blown with 2-3% accuracy being achieved by Filmcast. According to Filmcast, it already holds 15% of the UK market, however, with emphasis set on the production of new, problem-solving materials, the company is aiming to increase its share to upwards of 30%.

Davis-Standard’s Internal Diameter Increase (IDI) Conversion offers a cost-effective and convenient solution for processors who want to increase extruder output with relative little downtime and expense. IDI retrofit packages are simple, involving the replacement of the extruder barrel, feed section, screw and breaker plate with those of a larger diameter. The IDI package is suitable for increasing extruders with 64 mm, 89 mm, 114 mm and 152 mm diameters. A 64 mm extruder can be upsized to 75 mm, 89 mm to 100 mm, 114 mm to 130 mm and 152 mm to 175 mm. Since the barrel diameter is increased, a comparable L/D increase is also required to maintain the original L/D. As long as there is suitable horsepower on the existing machine, expected output increases of approximately 25% or more are possible with most materials. By maximising screw design for a particular material, outputs and melt quality can increase even more dramatically.

Color concentrates maker Americhem Inc., USA, has boosted its presence in the fibers market by acquiring Extruded Colors Inc. of Dalton, USA. Extruded Colors’ primary business is making color concentrates used in polypropylene fibers. Previously, Americhem’s fibers business was focused on concentrates for nylon and polyester fibers.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Rayon will lift capacity for PMMA sheet at two plants in Toyama and Otake, Japan, by 2,000-3,000 t/y over the course of 2003. Output of the two units currently stands at just over 43,000 t/y. The Japanese group also is conducting a feasibility study for a new PMMA sheet plant in China.

Within a joint project, companies of the Coperion group have supplied the compounding and conveying equipment for the world-scale plant installed by Basell Polyolefine GmbH at their location in Wesseling for the production of high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Corresponding to an annual production of 250,000 tons, this equipment is dimensioned for throughputs up to 40 t/h. Planning and realization of the project are an example showing the interaction of the various process steps of plastics compounding and conveying and also the synergies resulting from the fact that, since the formation of the new Coperion group about 15 months ago, plant engineering can now be provided from a single source.
For compounding of the polymer and transforming it into pellets which are ready for further processing, Coperion Werner & Pfleiderer GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart, has supplied a co-rotating twin-screw MEGAcompounder ZSK 320 with underwater pelletizer. By means of a pneumatic dense-phase conveying system from Coperion Waeschle GmbH & Co. KG, Weingarten, the pellets are conveyed through a stainless steel pipe widening from 200 to 250 mm ND to the silo cluster about 600 m away, with almost no fines being produced. The pellets are then distributed by pipes and diverter valves to the 50 silos, each one with a capacity of 250 tons, in such a way that each silo receives one production lot.
The polymer powder from the polymerizer is cleaned, mixed with stabilizers and fed into the MEGAcompounder ZSK with 320 mm screw diameter. In the processing section, the polymer is plasticized and transformed into a homogeneous polyethylene melt, mainly by shearing forces. To ensure the necessary energy input, the compounder is equipped with a 7.2 MW drive. Its speed-variable electric motor allows HDPE types with high melt viscosity as well as easy flowing products to be compounded most efficiently at high throughputs. The melt pressure necessary for the underwater pelletizer is built up by a gear pump.
To cope with the long conveying distance, the pneumatic system is operated at a nominal pressure of 6 bar. From an intermediate silo under ambient pressure, the classified dry pellets are transferred into the pressurized conveying pipe by means of a rotary valve. Because of the great pressure difference, the high-pressure rotary valve is extremely sturdy and designed with a sophisticated sealing system which ensures that only little leak air is produced and, consequently, compressed-air consumption goes down. The pipes of the conveying system are polished inside; all joints and diverter valves are flush. This ensures that, notwithstanding a conveying speed of up to 10 m/s, the amount of fines at the end of the conveying distance is only about 75 ppm and no fines separator needs be provided before distribution to the silos.

KIEFEL Extrusion GmbH, one of the technology leaders in the area of blown film lines has already sold 20 of its new KIRION generation machinery, introduced for the first time at the K 2001 fair, worldwide. Against this background, KIEFEL Extrusion booked an above-average order intake, contrary to the general market trend in plastics machinery, and is well above its operative plan. One of the company objectives which is aimed at worldwide expansion and an increase in market share has thereby been impressively confirmed.
Several of the lines sold, which have a variety of realized different configurations – from HDPE monolayer lines up to complex barrier film lines with working widths up to max. 3,000 mm – have already been successfully installed, accepted and produce with the highest customer satisfaction.