Refine - ABS, PE-HD, PP - Automotive Performance Materials

Plastics Technology, 2010-06-01, Refine, Redesign, Retool: Re-engineering as a Business Model
...s model: "We take existing products or manufacturing processes and try to make them better. We refine and rethink them for better cost and reliability and quality." That model has worked wel...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, 3D Simulation: Simulation of Foaming Polyurethanes
... the associated costs. This assumes, however, a certain readiness to incorporate 3D simulations into the project planning with the time required for them, since these take longer than 2½D simulations. In addition, it would help to further refine the material laws and associated measurement techniques used to characterise polyurethane foams. To this end, additional research and development projects are planned, so that the range of applications for polyurethanes can be supported over its entire ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, General-purpose Plastics: Appearance Ever More Important
...in of the original thousand-plus grades, and the concept is now to be extended to the PS range. The customer benefits from considerably reduced manufacturing costs. Polymers are no longer supplied in different colours, and the customer can further refine the basic product themselves, or contract out this work. Partnerships with masterbatch manufacturers, compounders and manufacturers of compounding machines have been set up to this end. Polyethylene Total Petrochemicals has launched a new mPE ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Injection Moulding (1): Innovation at Closer Inspection
...e calculated reliably (see Kunststoffe plast europe 9/2004, page 190). For optimal moulded part quality the time saving is in the range of 0.5s, whereby the system adjusts for varying environmental influences. Engel has continued to refine expansion injection moulding ("x-melt"). The procedure uses the energy of the compressed melt to improve the injecting performance of an electrically driven machine. As a demonstration a plant produced a 0.17mm thick battery cover. And What is the Re...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Innovations Today and Tomorrow: Polypropylene for Flexible Packaging
Packaging Polypropylene for Flexible Packaging Innovations Today and Tomorrow. The continuous improvement of flexible plastic packaging – driven primarily by the wishes of the consumer – is being helped along by the constant further development of polypropylene. With both flexible and rigid films – and especially with transparent cast film – enormous progress has been made in the last ten years. An important new impetus has also been provided by the development of new easy-to-open, easy-to-han...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Integrative Processing Technology: Injection Moulding Processes – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
...higher than for a soft-painted part. As a result of this initial development, many promising new applications are currently being considered, especially where new surface qualities are required. Retain and Refine Know-how Research and development in the plastics industry occur largely in a customer-oriented and product-specific manner. Considerations are focused on the moulded parts and their production, that is, on the process technology. Ideally, the end user, processor, material supplier and...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Market Growth Worldwide: Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA)
...ir business. Two key directions are emerging: the more predominant of these involves the mass production of general-purpose products as a route to process optimisation and achieving more favourable production costs. The other producers have opted to refine the quality of their products and exploit the specific properties of PMMA in order to produce specialities with new functions. This will then open up new applications and target groups. An example of this is the Plexiglas Struktur and Plexigl...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Rapid Tooling - Where does the time go?
... very small part of the overall process (25 % in the component manufacture phase). The proportion of costs, of course, is somewhat different. If we want to shorten the lead time and speed up the mould building process, we must do far more than just refine our engineering. As easy as it may be merely to invest in machinery and then be faster than everyone else, this is not the answer. Thought must be given to forms of organisation and management processes, and for many mould building companies, t...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Water-assisted Injection Moulding Technology: Improved Injector Design by Water-assisted Simulation
...ng production, i.e. the sum of the continually repeating injection moulding cycles. Fig.3 shows the profile of the simulated and measured temperatures of the closure cap for five successive water-assist cycles after part demoulding. To refine these considerations, the resulting temperatures at the injection closure cap were considered more individually (end face and side face). As is to be expected, the closure cap temperature increases from the first to the second cycle. Only a small temperatu...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-02-22, New Applications: Joining with Light
Joining. Joining with Light. New Applications. The use of lasers in production engineering for plastics parts is now an inherent feature of innovative production solutions. Thanks to constant further developments on both the hardware side and the process/materials side, laser technology is gaining an ever-broader range of applications. Matthias Poggel. Arnold Gillner. Ulrich Russek. The underlying basis for machining or processing materials with laser light depends on the way in which the ...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-02-27, Automaking: Inspiration in the Interior
...rts delivered, in spite of the demanding requirements, especially regarding surface quality, astounds even experts. By way of explanation, Judt points to the enormous efforts of Visteon to train personnel as well as refine and stabilise the processes, in addition to the sophisticated equipment for parts testing available in their own quality lab and the German Federal Materials Research and Testing Laboratory (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung / BAM). Flawless Surfaces, Integrate...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-09-28, Extrusion Blow Moulding: Moulding with Air
...g conditions. Optimum wall thickness distributions in blow moulded parts are the specialty of the Troisdorf-based company Feuerherm. For economical production of blow moulded parts with all degrees of difficulty, the company has continued to refine the time-tested partial wall thickness control/static flexible die ring (PWDS/SFDR) control system. The optimum combination for any particular application can be obtained from the nine PWDS versions and the seven SFDR variants (all of which patented u...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-09-28, High-tech in a Holiday Region: With Clockwork Precision
... enough to withstand these changes. Following the last major expansion in production, where the production surface was increased threefold and the number of injection moulding machines doubled, Wild & Küpfer invested in an elaborate and refined material feed system from Mann + Hummel ProTec, Bensheim (Fig. 2). The system was tailor-made and has 30 drying hoppers, which can each supply up to three machines with material. Refined Material Feed. Mario Mäder characterises the new material supply c...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-08-14, Bio – Sense or Nonsense
...s, do not require excess amounts of water or fertilizers, then use of biomass as a source for material is ecologically beneficial. If, however, large amounts of forest must be cleared or processes that consume large amounts of energy are needed to refine the biomass, the ecological benefit can easily be reversed. For a correct assessment, aspects such as energy and water consumption, generation of greenhouse gases and discharges into water, e.g. as the result of overfertilization, must be taken ...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-09-23, A Screw Concept for Bone Substance
...screw with a mixing section in the feed zone and a Maddock shearing section By contrast, standard screws prove suitable for the direct processing of PLA powder with low filler content. However, there is a problem in producing PLA powder. Attempts to refine the plastic granules cryogenically have not been successful until now. Low temperatures are necessary to minimize the temperature-dependent molecular weight degradation. However, because of this, intermediate processing would also have to take...

Kunststoffe international, 2011-01-25, Three Steps to a Good Marking Result
Marking a part using a laser as the marking tool is a technically demanding process. The user needs to know the pulse power, the pulse frequency, the beam deflection velocity and the energy settings that are required for the laser in order to refine and optimize the marking result. The wide range of setting options available for the individual parameters on the TruMark meant that, despite the comprehensive training offered by Trumpf, the manufacturers (see box on page 16), those new to laser mar...

Kunststoffe international, 2011-08-24, Bio above All?
...ronmental compatibility and economics. Here, both renewable raw materials and bio-based plastics do not always come out on top [1] (Fig. 1). When transportation distances, water usage or fertilizer requirements, deforestation or the energy used to refine the biomass are considered on a case-by-case basis, what is assumed to be a more environmentally friendly material may in fact be less eco-efficient than a fossil-based precursor. Plastics experts in particular know that it is possible to conser...

Kunststoffe international, 2011-10-17, Dust Disturbs Not Only Transparency
...uct. When producing high-quality optical or transparent parts, this is especially relevant. A high dust content can also reduce the tensile strength of the plastic part. The consequence: high reject rates for the processor. Pellet dedusters that can refine even highly dust-laden regrind into a highgrade material have been developed specifically for this purpose. The technical solutions employed are based on two different approaches for separating the dust fractions from the pellets by means of s...

Kunststoffe international, 2012-02-24, The First Laser-Sintered Skull Implant
...ered construction of the implant. This study makes an excellent starting point for developing further patient-specific implants from PEEK. In order for these to be actually used on humans, the main goal now is to further refine the process chain. The model for treating skull trauma contains a lasersintered PEEK implant (photos: EOS) Fig. 1. Eosint P 800 laster-sintering system used to manufacture high-temperature PEEK cranial implant prototypes for Custom IMD research project Fig. 2. An early de...

Kunststoffe international, 2012-06-25, We Want to Continue to Grow Profitably
...h this flexibility, permanently high utilization of our production is only possible with the aid of state-of-the-art organizational methods, such as our THvi customer information system. We will strategically expand and refine these methods to ensure continuous utilization of at least 80 percent. To this end, we will continue to invest in compounding, for example in small, flexible plants. Of course, we will still keep a focus on large and medium-sized orders. We are aiming for a balanced batch-...

Kunststoffe international, 2013-06-19, Technical Products and Sustainable Production
Products that demand a high level of technical expertise and quality dominate processing and development among machine manufacturers in Germany. The objective is to refine existing concepts continuously and develop new technologies with even greater performance. The Potential of Engineering Plastics This year’s event focused on the use of plastics in new fields of application. Processing of engineering plastics such as polyamide 12 (PA12) and its combination with additives and fillers is being u...

Kunststoffe international, 2017-02-23, New Generation of High-Performance Injection Molding Tools
In a joint development project, the "Technisches F&E-Zentrum für Oberflächenveredelung und Hochleistungswerkzeugbau" (Technical R&D Center for Surface Refinement and High-Performance Toolmaking) and the Kurz Group’s toolmaking department have succeeded in producing a new generation of high-performance injection molding tools. The tools coated using a special CVD process make it possible to process plastics filled with up to 85 wt. % glass or carbon fiber, without issues related to wear. It was i...

Kunststoffe international, 2020-04-08, Quick Way to Find the Right Adhesive
...,” said Reisenzahn, summing up the concept. By the end of the year, a search engine for coatings is also planned. With this tool, users will be able to see coatings displayed for various substrates. Here again, it will be possible to refine the search using different parameters such as corrosion classes, and abrasion and chemical resistance. In 2021, a navigator for 3D printing will be added. This will include both materials and software tools as well as the actual printers. Reisenzahn believes ...

Kunststoffe international, 2020-05-05, Groundbreaking Ultrasound Shear Waves
...the best choice to quickly obtain information about the fiber orientation, or when only the direction with the highest stiffness needs to be determined. The objectives of future work are to further refine the acoustic method and to improve the quantitative significance.