Plastics Technology

APR 2017

Plastics Technology - Dedicated to improving Plastics Processing.

Issue link: http://pty.epubxp.com/i/802323

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 9 of 91

Negri Bossi & Sytrama Moving to Michigan Negri Bossi North America and sister company Sytrama USA are moving from New Castle, Del., to Plymouth, Mich., where they are also build- ing a technical center. The 35,000 ft 2 facility will house sales and service departments, a classroom, showroom and demonstration area, inventory and spare-parts storage, machine preparation and customization, and robot final assembly and preparation. On display for customer trials and demonstrations will be Negri Bossi injection machines up to 2200 tons and Sytrama robots. The facility is expected to open in October and will be available to local vocational technical colleges and universities for classroom and lab work. This facility compliments the recent addition of service technicians in Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois, along with a new direct salesperson in the Illinois/Wisconsin territory. Company President Tony Firth also says that new products announced at the K 2016 show in Germany, like the servohydraulic Canbio ST series, are now available in North America. He adds that "2017 will see the launch of several more exciting new products." 302-328-8020 • negribossi.com; sytrama.com Arkema Boosts PEKK Capacity Arkema (U.S. office in King of Prussia, Pa.) has doubled its capacity for Kepstan PEKK (poly- ether-ketone-ketone) resins in France to meet growing demand in carbon-fiber composites and additive manufacturing. The company also is investing in a world-scale PEKK plant at Mobile, Ala., scheduled for startup in the second half of 2018. 610-205-7000 • arkema-americas.com New Database Documents Advantages Of Rapid Heat/Cool Molding As noted in our February report on tooling news at the K 2016 show in Dusseldorf, RocTool of Charlotte, N.C., has been conducting experiments and compiling a database of how different resins respond to rapid heat/cool injection molding using RocTool's induction mold heating and high-capacity water-cooling systems. RocTool has branded this technology HD Plastics (HD = high-definition). Now, the firm has released some details on its growing HD Plastics Material Database, comparing results of rapid heat/ cool molding with its technology and conventional injection molding with continuous water cooling of the mold. RocTool developed an instrumented spiral mold to calculate flow length that has variable thickness from 0.5 to 1.5 mm. RocTool also collaborated with RJG Inc., Traverse City, Mich. (rjginc.com), to monitor cavity pressures in the mold with RJG's sensors and eDart data-collection system. The first study analyzed six common amorphous and crystalline resins (see graph) in commodity and engineering categories. Results showed flow length increased from about 40% to over 100% with RocTool technology. Experiments with PC showed much lower pressure drop between start and end of fill with RocTool's approach. Tests with TPO in molding a rectangular part with a large, flat surface showed a gloss reading of 79 with RocTool technology vs. 41 for conventional mold- ing. Likewise, 10% glass-filled PC/SAN alloy showed a 130% gloss improvement. RocTool continues to expand its material database and plans to unveil it on its website by the third quarter of this year. 980-938-0586 • roctool.com Barnes Group to Acquire Gammaflux Adding to its growing stable of plastics injection molding and tooling-related companies, Barnes Group Inc., Bristol, Conn., has signed a defini- tive agreement to buy privately held Gammaflux L.P., a leading supplier of hot-runner tempera- ture and sequential valve-gate control systems. Gammaflux will remain in Sterling, Va., and will continue to operate as a separate busi- ness within Barnes' Industrial Segment, in the Molding Solutions strategic business unit. Other assets in that unit are hot-runner suppliers Synventive, Männer, and Thermoplay, as well as tooling supplier FOBOHA and in-mold sensors and process-controls supplier Priamus. 800-284-4477 • gammaflux.com First Monosandwich Injection Press with MuCell Foam Ability Sorcole GmbH, a custom injec- tion molder in Hutturm, Germany, will be installing this year the first two-component mono- sandwich co-injection machine to have MuCell microcellular foaming capability from Trexel, Wilmington, Mass. (trexel.com). Sorcole specializes in foam molding for automotive, appli- ance, sports, and other markets. The 800-ton co-injection press is being built by Cincinnati-based Milacron (milacron.com). Accord- ing to Trexel, the machine will be available for trials and samples not only to Sorcole's customers, but to other molders that may wish to explore the potential of monosandwich molding with MuCell technology. Sidel Opens Cap Molding Plant in Arizona Sidel Group of France (U.S. office in Norcross, Ga.; sidel.com) opened a plant last year in Peoria, Ariz., for injection molding mainly beverage-bottle caps. The plant is the third facility for Novem- bal, the cap and closure molding unit of Sidel Group. Sidel is known in the plas- tics industry as a producer of machinery systems for stretch-blow molding, filling, capping, and labeling PET bottles. How Sidel now is also injection molding bottle caps comes from a recent move by its parent company, Tetra Laval Group of Switzerland. In 2015, Tetra Laval transferred the Novembal business unit, which has molded bottle caps for 50 years, from its Sweden-based Tetra Pak liquid-packaging group to the Sidel machinery group. At the time, Novembal (novembal.com) had just two plants in Edison, N.J., and Rawdon, Que. The Peoria plant opened with 50 employees. Flow length, in Conventional Technology PC ABS PEI PC GF50 PP PC+SAN GF10 RocTool Technology 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 +62.9% +38.3% +40.4% +101.5% +72.8% +67.9% 5.7 3.5 4.7 6.6 6.5 4.7 8.1 6.7 13.5 14.0 10.9 18.3 8 APRIL 2017 Plastics Technology PTonline.com T E C H N O L O G Y A N D I N D U S T R Y N E W S St ar t ing Up

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Plastics Technology - APR 2017