Strictly-Extrusion

James D. Fogarty, chairman of Plastic Engineering Associates Licensing, USA, recently obtained a U.S. patent relating to his Turbo-Screws technology for thermoplastic foam extrusion. According to a statement by the company, the patent grants exclusive rights to Fogarty for the manufacture and use of any type of aperture other than a perfectly round hole in the flights of a screw for foam extrusion. “Field tests have confirmed my own calculations that perfectly round holes in the flights of feed screws do not work in foam extrusion. They do not promote cross-channel flow like Turbo-Screws technology. www.turboscrews.com

DuPont Packaging and Industrial Polymers (P&IP), a worldwide leader in specialty ethylene copolymers, announce plans to add capacity in Europe to manufacture Elvax® ethylene vinyl acetate resins and Bynel® adhesive resins. Production will begin in early 2004, following conversion of an LPDE tubular reactor at the Specialty Polymers Antwerp (SPA) facility in Antwerp, Belgium.
DuPont will manufacture a wide range of its Elvax® and Bynel copolymer resins in Antwerp. This expansion gives DuPont both autoclave and tubular facilities to supply the broadest range of products to customers globally. Typical applications for these products include flexible packaging, adhesives, footwear and wire and cable. The speciality copolymers include grades used for blown film, extrusion, lamination, foaming, injection molding, and compounding. The resins are inherently flexible, resilient, and tough. Some Elvax® EVA grades can also be stabilised for applications requiring resistance to sunlight or weathering with little or no sacrifice of clarity.
“This investment reinforces our pledge to a strong global ethylene copolymers business and also demonstrates our will to further meet our growth objectives by continuing to deliver value to our customers world-wide,” says Craig Binetti, President of DuPont Packaging and Industrial Polymers.
David McFall, Director DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers Europe, adds, “The developments in Belgium reflect DuPont’s commitment to the European market. With these steps we expect to further improve service levels and provide a tailored offering for our European customers.”
In October 2000, DuPont and Borealis established Specialty Polymers Antwerp N.V. as a manufacturing joint to manufacture ethylene-acrylate copolymers for the parent companies. Previous modifications at the Belgian plant in 2002 saw DuPont broaden its range of acrylate polymers with the launch of Elvaloy® AC acrylate copolymers, offering high melt strength and new levels of heat resistance in easy-processing olefin-based materials. Applications for Elvaloy® AC include industrial extrusions, extrusion coating, polymer modification, PVC replacement, soft touch, and cast and blown films. This next phase of investment by DuPont further expands their global capacity for specialty ethylene copolymers and supports the continued growth of their Elvax® and Bynel® product lines.

Verbruggen has presented its new multi-layer adapters MA-CARR and MA-CAFR. The Belgian manufacturer of flat dies and multi-layer adapters has developed a new concept of extremely flexible coextrusion adapters. The principle of the configuration cassettes and the rotating restrictor bars has been kept. The improvement is to be found in the heart of the adapter. Due to an ingenious system of sliding elements, one and the same adapter can perfectly be used for a wide range of coextrusion configuration. The system allows much bigger variations in thickness and viscosity than it ever did before, according to the company. Due to the modular concept, a total flexibility for future products is guaranteed. The more than thirty MA-CARR and MA-CAFR adapters with up to seven layers, delivered up to now, have proven their reliability and extreme flexibility.

Kuhne, Germany, will deliver a flat film line to an unnamed French sheet manufacturer next month. The customer will use the line to produce thermoformable sheet for the food industry. The order, worth around Euro 3m, has helped Kuhne to increase sales to around Euro 50m. The line can co-extrude up to three layers to produce PS, polyester and PP sheet, in thicknesses of 0.2 to 2mm. The line is 1,400mm wide and has an output of 1,000kg/hour. For the first time, Kuhne will incorporate downstream coating and laminating into the line, allowing a PE or barrier layer to be added to the co-extruded sheet.
Kuhne has also supplied a sheet line to a customer in the Ukraine, which is producing 10mm thick polycarbonate sheet for construction panels. The PC sheets will also be used to make separation panels in trains.

Macro Engineering & Technology Inc., USA, will deliver late this year four more biaxially oriented PVDC barrier-film extrusion lines to a Chinese customer in Shandong Province. These lines, can produce 1200-mm-wide biax monolayer film from 32 to 70 microns thick. The film is extruded as a horizontal bubble. It is used mainly for heat-shrinkable, retortable sausage casings. That customer already has two Macro biax PVDC film lines that were delivered three years ago. With the delivery of the four new lines, Macro will have shipped 25 biax PVDC film lines to China.

Nanoblend™ concentrates are high-performance materials based on nanocomposite technology. The new concentrates replace traditional mineral or glass reinforcements and flame-retardant additives in a wide variety of resin compounds. Development of the Nanoblend concentrates product family is the first outcome of the strategic alliance between PolyOne and Nanocor Inc., the largest supplier of nanoclays for plastics and a wholly owned subsidiary of AMCOL International Corp.
The Nanoblend concentrate range contains approximately 40% nanoclays in different polymer carriers. This concentrate assists the incorporation and dispersion of the clay to form the nanocomposite structure during final processing. The use of the Nanoblend concentrate helps to overcome some of the earlier difficulties experienced by processors in trying to incorporate nanoclays directly into their compound. By producing a concentrate, PolyOne offers a product that can be used in a wide variety of processes without compromising process parameters.

Nanocomposite technology principally improves stiffness and retains the impact resistance. Enhanced flame retardancy can also be achieved, with the capability to reach UL94 V-0. Nanocomposites have been shown to improve a polymer’s physical properties and can reduce the amount of filler needed to achieve a specific property. For example it can be demonstrated that approximately 1% of nanoclay gives a stiffness equivalent to that obtained with 10% of typical fillers, such as talc. Lighter plastics are attractive in many consumer areas, especially automotive parts, electronic components, appliances and office furniture.
Typical applications of these Nanoblend concentrates are small appliances and electrical enclosures where increased fire resistance, improved physical property retention, reduced relative heat release and non-dripping properties are advantageous. They are also effective for both interior and exterior automotive applications and are typically designed for demanding light and stiff applications, and have improved surface quality and toughness. Other Nanoblend concentrates applications include film, sheet, and wire and cable.

With a focus on quality and ingenuity, Pyramid Incorporated of Newton, Iowa, has carved out a global niche in the polyurethane elastomer stretch belt market. For more than 35 years, Pyramid has been a leading innovator and manufacturer of belts used in low and fractional horsepower drive applications as well as in transport devices for film, currency, mail and other small items. Vital to this success has been the reliable performance of the company’s five 1.5-inch (40mm) Davis-Standard Killion extruders. The extruders process a cumulative average of 100,000 pounds (45,360 kg) of resin annually, manufacturing round and flat belts sold throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Pyramid purchased its first Killion extruder in 1968, which is still in operation today, used for resin blending, recycling purposes and material homogenization.

“A Davis-Standard Killion extruder is like a Model T car; it runs forever,” said Tom Tripp, president of Pyramid, Inc. “We used our first machine for 15 consecutive years and then took it out of service. Then last spring, some 16 years later, we needed an extruder for a new idea, so we pulled this old machine out of storage. It started up with no trouble and we are using it daily as a blending machine and to re-process out-of-dimension extrudate with good physical properties. This has made our operation even more efficient because our blending process was taking away production time from our four other extruders.”
In addition to reliability, Tripp appreciates the accuracy and versatility of

Davis-Standard Killion extruders. Accuracy is essential as Pyramid manufactures round belts in cross-sections of .062 to .562 inches (1.6 to 14.3mm) and flat belts in a thickness range of .030 to .187 inches (.8 to 4.8mm) with widths up to
1.5 inches (40mm). Both belt types have a minimum length of 3.75 inches (95mm) but have no maximum length limitation. Additionally, all belts must be able to withstand a temperature range of -10 to +150°F. Extruder versatility for quick product changeovers is another necessity because Pyramid processes seven variations of urethane for its Pyrathane® product range. Pyrathane is a Pyramid innovation, replacing rubber with polyurethane to manufacture belts that are extremely durable without compromising elasticity. This superior abrasion resistance improves belt performance and the elasticity provides significant cost savings as it eliminates the need for tensioning devices.
“In addition to quality extruders, we appreciate how Davis-Standard services their equipment,” Tripp added. “Not long ago Paul Banks of
Davis-Standard’s aftermarket department provided technical advice that prevented us from spending more money than necessary on components we didn’t need. Paul immediately identified the problem and we were pleased. We will only purchase Davis-Standard Killion extruders in the future.”
Pyrathane belts are used in several commercial and household devices such as live roller conveyors, postage meters, copier paper transports, silicon wafer transports, key cutters, humidifiers, microwave oven deflectors, vacuum cleaners, laundry appliances, computer printers, floor care equipment and personal whirlpools. For more information about Pyramid’s belt capabilities, visit www.pyramidbelts.com. For more information about the Davis-Standard Killion product line, contact Simon Dominey at sdominey@davis-standard.com.

Spartech Corp. has acquired the sheet extrusion business of Portage, Wis.-based Wilbert Inc.’s TriEnda Division for about US$5.5 million. The company said the acquired business manufactures extruded sheet primarily for the TriEnda line of reusable shipping and material handling containers, and represents more than 40 million pounds of growth for Spartech. It becomes Spartech’s 22nd plastics facility.
The deal also includes a five-year agreement for Spartech to supply certain products to TriEnda and the purchase of four extrusion lines and supporting equipment.
Spartech said ‘practically all’ of the current employees working in the sheet extrusion division of TriEnda wold become Spartech employees, effective immediately.
St. Louis-based Spartech Corp.produces engineered thermoplastic materials and molded and profile products.

China’s Dalian Shide Plastic Industry has placed a huge order for extrusion machinery with Krauss-Maffei. The Chinese firm has purchased 264 extruders and 100 profile extruders from the German supplier. The machinery will be shipped in four phases throughout next year, to Dalian Shide’s production sites in Dalian and Shanghai. The order comprises co-extruders, model KMD 50K conical extruders and model 32D parallel extruders. In 2001, the company acquired 40 profile extruders from Krauss-Maffei. Dalian Shide, founded in 1992, is undertaking an ambitious expansion in China. The company also bought 165 extruders from Cincinnati Extrusion.

Shakespeare Monofilament UK is set to almost double production of polymer fibres following its acquisition of the monofilament business of EMS-Griltech. The company has bought the order book, machinery and technical know-how from the Swiss EMS-Chemie group for an undisclosed sum. It will expand its site in Fleetwood, Lancashire, by 1,000 sq metres to accommodate four extrusion lines arriving from Switzerland.
Managing director Roger Evans said: “We’ve had a business here with four extrusion lines for some time. We were looking to expand the business to create momentum and critical mass.” The first of the lines will arrive in the UK next month and the transfer will be complete by July 2004. During the transition period EMS-Griltech will supply Grilon Monofilament products under a toll manufacturing agreement.

Shakespeare has capacity to produce 1,200tpa of fibre, mainly in polyethylene, polyamide and PPS. The four new lines will add 800tpa, bringing the total capacity to 2,000tpa. The company plans to recruit 16 workers to operate the machines, as well as three or four staff in other areas.