On December 6-7, 2012, Hosokawa Alpine hosted its Open House at its Augsburg, Germany site, attracting more than 220 guests from 25 countries. The main highlight of the first day of the event was the presentation of a five-layer blown film line which operated with an inline MDO film stretching unit. For the first time, the patented Trim Reduction for Inline Orientation (TRIO) system was presented to a larger audience.The demonstration showed the production of monoaxially stretched five-layer PE composite film for compression packaging with a thickness of 35µm and a layflat width of 1,570mm (finished product).
Hosokawa Alpine says the product range was enhanced by a new reclaim extruder. With a maximum output capacity of 70kg/h, the line compounds waste trim from the MDO unit into reusable pellets. Depending on the film type, these pellets can be reused for producing the central layer.The first day also featured the demonstration of a new three-layer blown film line for the production of film with a width of up to 2,600mm. As said, the line was designed for excellent film quality at very high output rates. For the presentation, the three-layer line was used for the production of PE-LD collation shrink film with a width of 2,200mm and a thickness of 50µm.
The second day featured the demonstration of the new nine-layer line equipped with nine extruders and a 630mm die head. The line is suitable for the production of film with a width of up to 2,600mm. In order to ensure that this line can flexibly process asymmetrical formulations, it is equipped with an additional water bath. The nine-layer line produced symmetrical high-barrier film for lamination of food packaging applications made from PE, PA and 1.6µm of EVOH with a thickness of 40µm and a width of 2,300mm. It had an output of more than 700kg/h.
At the same time visitors were also presented with a five-layer line producing highly demanding laminating film made from different PE grades with a thickness of 45µm. The five-layer line impressed visitors with its incredible flexibility, as demonstrated during the Open House by its capacity for extremely fast product change-overs. Within only 30 minutes, the line was changed for the production of side gusset stretch film to the production of collation shrink film without side gusset. According to Hosokawa Alpine, this fast change-over was achieved by the One-Touch Change System, which runs an automatic start-up with stored production settings.
