Hands-on efficiency
The management team around CEO Jürgen Arnold gives a positive account of both the K and the Open House: “We are enthusiastic about the enormous interest shown in our technology at the K, and during the Open House event at the battenfeld-cincinnati facility in Kempen as well. With our new developments we have fully met our customers’ expectations.” As a member of the VDMA BlueCompetence initiative, battenfeld-cincinnati pays special attention to energetically mature extrusion concepts, which offer the optimum in terms of performance and handling attributes as well.
With its strategic divisional alignment, the company has successfully maintained its market position in the European and Central Asian markets and strengthened its position in the USA and China. These are now contributing about 25 % to corporate sales. Subsidiaries in India, Japan, Russia and Singapore, plus a new one recently opened in Brazil, ensure a stronger market presence, more closeness to customers and direct support.
At the K 2013, battenfeld-cincinnati even topped the outstanding result of 2010. The focus was on demand for high-performance, energy-efficient extrusion lines. Of course the machines shown in production provided the starting point for more detailed expert discussions.
Open House events at the battenfeld-cincinnati plant in Kempen
On 17 and 21 October, 400 Open House visitors were able to witness live demonstrations of a PP sheet extrusion line, a coextrusion line producing a fiberglass-reinforced 4-layer PP-R pipe, and a coextrusion line manufacturing a 3-layer PVC pipe. An exhibition of the line partner companies, which supplied the materials and equipment for each of these lines, met with a very positive response.
Extremely narrow layer thicknesses with minimized energy consumption
In Kempen, the Packaging Division gave an impressive demonstration of how high-speed extrusion and efficiency can go perfectly hand in hand. For this purpose, the extrusion line for producing PP sheet with thicknesses ranging from 200 to 2,500 µm was equipped with a high-speed BC-75-40 DV T4 extruder and the new, unique Multi-Touch roll stack.
Since the market launch ten years ago battenfeld-cincinnati has already installed more than 170 high-speed extruders worldwide. Thanks to mature process technology, these extruders stand out by their high energy efficiency. The compact 75 mm-machines reach outputs of up to 1,500 kg/h for PP and up to 2,000 kg/h for PS.
A special eye-catcher was the Multi-Touch roll stack incorporated in the line, which operates with only two large chill rolls instead of the conventional stack of three rolls, but with the addition of five post-cooling rolls. In this way, absolutely even cooling and calibration of the sheet is achieved on both sides. The outcome is premium-quality, virtually tension-free sheet with extremely narrow thickness tolerances.
These line partners contributed to the successful event: ProTec Polymer Processing, Germany (material feeding), Maag Pump Systems, Germany (screen changer and melt pump), EDS, Austria (extrusion die), J. van Baal, Germany (rolls for the roll stack), SMK, Austria (temperature controller), SBI Produktion techn. Anlagen, Austria (thickness gage), Sander Maschinen- und Anlagenbau, Germany (winder), Rapid Granulier-Systeme, Germany (edge trimmer), and Milliken Europe BVBA, Belgium, Polymirae, Korea, Pinnacle Polymers, USA, and Polychim Industrie, France, as material suppliers.
Line length and sagging drastically reduced
With a 4-layer pipe extrusion line, the Infrastructure Division presented tangible evidence of battenfeld-cincinnati’s comprehensive expertise ranging from extruders, dies and downstream equipment all the way to the cutting device–complete line competence from a single source.
Plasticizing of the melt within the line to produce a 500 mm pipe with a 36.8 mm wall thickness was handled jointly by a solEX 60-40 single-screw extruder (for the inner and outer PP-RCT layers), two uniEX 60-30 coextruders (for the middle layer made of fiberglass-reinforced PP-RCT), and a uniEX 35-30 (for the covering layer, also made of PP-RCT). A coEX 30-25 added the color stripes. All of these extruders operate with AC drives and optimized processing units, so that energy-efficient production is ensured.
The die on display was the new helix 630-4 VSI-T+ which, thanks to efficient EAC internal pipe cooling combined with a new, innovative “active melt cooling system”, not only reduces the overall length of the line, but also ensures high product quality, since the sagging effect is significantly reduced, which has made production of a pipe as described above possible in the first place.Thanks to this unique technology, pipes with even larger wall thicknesses can now be manufactured at reasonable cost as well. Bänninger AG, Germany made available the die, which had been supplied by battenfeld-cincinnati.
The heat recovery system from Labotek, Denmark also contributed to the particularly high energy efficiency of this line by redirecting the heated air from the pipe die to the material drying unit. Borealis, Austria supplied the PP-RCT material, the gravimetric system came from ConPro, Germany. The entire Green Pipe downstream equipment of the linie originates from battenfeld-cincinnati.
Low material consumption
At the Open House, the Construction Division presented a line to produce PVC foam core pipes with an output of 1,000 kg/h. In PVC processing, too, battenfeld-cincinnati is known as a technology driver which continuously improves its components and adjusts them to market demand. In addition to one model each from the twinEX counter-rotating parallel extruder series and the conEX range of counter-rotating conical extruders, the line on display was equipped with two further highlights: a spider 400-3 pipe die and the new RTA 250+ cutting device. A 160 mm pipe with an extremely low weight per meter was produced.
The advantages of the new pipe die are its high performance, optimal layer thickness distribution with narrow tolerances, and short dwell times thanks to short flow paths and the compact design of the die. Moreover, it offers an enormous amount of flexibility, since it is able to process the entire bandwidth of different materials and can also be converted easily for 2-layer applications.
The material and the additives were supplied by the line partners Chemson, Austria, Lehmann & Voss, Germany and Solvay, Austria, the downstream equipment by battenfeld-cincinnati, as was the new automatic RTA 250+ pipe cutting device, which met with very lively interest.
The RTA 250+ is extremely flexible and able to cut both PVC and Polyolefin pipes with a wide range of diameters and wall thicknesses. No drive unit is required on the rotating cutting blade, so that the most stringent demands can be met with simultaneous maximum stability. Thanks to the use of frequency-controlled carriage and rotation drives, the deceleration energy can be reclaimed as well and the efficiency thus increased even further. www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com
