Plastics News Europe - October 2019 - 39

K2019 - MACHINERY

➡ Continued from page 37
are replaced by ceramic heaters and
the shape was slightly changed.
Under the slogan "Creating
Change Together", KAUTEX MASCHINEBAU (Hall 14, A16/18) is presenting various technologies, including a newly developed extrusion head
that drastically reduces the consumption of raw materials when changing
colour and material. An all-electric
KBB60 blow moulding machine will
demonstrate the production of a sustainable three-layer bottle containing
PCR in live production made from
materials, supplied by Braskem. To reduce the consumption of raw material, a mixture of polyethylene (I'm
green™) and PCR is also foamed in
the middle layer. To complete the production cycle, the company Erema
will recycle the bottles produced during the trade show. The location of
this live recycling demonstration will
be the Erema "Circonomic Centre" in
the outside area where the circular
economy will be brought to life for
the trade show visitors.
Kautex will also offer individual
plant tours in the company's Bonn
headquarters during the trade show.
Visitors to K 2019 can find out more
about services and book plant tours
at the Kautex booth.
ADDEX Inc. (Hall 17, C41), a
global manufacturer of blown film
equipment, is displaying the latest
development in its patented Intensive Cooling air ring design, first introduced at K 2016, as a stackable
configuration of two to four cooling
elements, which were fully enclosed
and mounted between the die and
the air ring. The company later replaced the lower lips in an Addex air
ring with just a single, aerodynamically-designed Intensive Cooling element, a design that made the innovation suitable for retrofits. Addex is
now entering Phase 2 of Intensive

E BluePower twin-screw extruder - Four new extruder sizes for output rates of over 2,500 kg/h

Cooling development. The company
is examining the design of other
components in the blown film process, such as the main air lip design,
air collars and IBC to optimise total
system performance in combination
with Intensive Cooling.
Compounding systems expert
FARREL POMINI (Hall 9, A24) will exhibit along with its parent company,
HF MIXING GROUP under the theme
of 'applications expertise'. The company will show interactive stations
that demonstrate its expertise in processing a variety of highly-filled polymers and formulations, including biopolymers.
The company will feature a compounding tower display at the stand
with a live Synergy Control System
demonstration. Features of the control system include feed system control from the operator touchscreen,
integrated control of support equipment upstream and downstream, automatic start-up of downstream process, automatic shutdown under
normal and fault conditions, remote

Kautex embraces sustainability under the slogan of 'Creating Change
Together'

OCTOBER 2019

monitoring and support capability
and PLC-based with touchscreen
HMI. The system is expandable into a
supervisory system (SCADA).
And, in thermoforming, WM
THERMOFORMING
MACHINES
(Hall 16, A3) will be demonstrating its
new FLEX-series, touted by the company as the first "Universal Thermoforming machine". Said to be extremely flexible in terms of mould
interchangeability and adaptability,
this series will save "trouble and costs
when buying new technology", said
WM.
SIGMA ENGINEERING GMBH
(Hall 13, B31) will be presenting the
first developmental applications for the
optimisation of extrusion dies using its
Sigmasoft Virtual Molding software.
The behaviour of the melt inside an extrusion die is comparable to the flow
behaviour inside the hot runner of thermoplastic or inside the cold runner of
elastomer applications. Moreover, the
temperature distribution inside the die
alloy, as well as the geometry of the
flow channel will also significantly impact flow behaviour.
Over the years, Sigma has gained
a wealth of experience from having
completed innumerable projects that
required the thermal and geometrical
balancing of hot and cold runner systems for thermoplastic and elastomer
applications. Moving on to extrusion
was simply the next logical step.
Simulation helps to identify dead
spots, excessively long dwelling times
in the die or high pressure losses even
before the die is built. This means
that tool changing costs and excessive trial-and-error runs to find the
optimum configuration can be reduced, making the development of a
new extrusion line faster, cheaper
and more predictable.

➡ Continued on page 41

Plastics News Europe - October 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Plastics News Europe - October 2019