Page 69 - Plastics News April 2024

IN THE NEWS

trol, and notes the single-inlet ple-
num provided better overall thickness
profile with reduced variability. “This
was unexpected, and it also appeared
to create less turbulence with better
bubble stability,” Austin adds. “With
multi-inlet plenums, you have inlet
hitting another inlet, hitting another
inlet, and you get repeating cases of
internal turbulence. In addition, the
hose length and bend variations also
common to multi-inlet plenums are all
gone with the single-inlet plenum, so
this coupled with the equal and oppo-
site flows leads to significantly better
overall performance.”

New air ring from Addex has a single-
inlet plenum, eliminating the problem
control can be a problem.” Wilck adds, “Most other single-inlet moving multiple hoses up and down
So Addex set a goal to design a single- plenums are shaped like a Nautilus: to accommodate height-adjustable
inlet plenum that performed equal to machined in a spiral that starts off big, units.
what it had achieved with its multi- gets smaller as it goes around, and is
inlet conventional plenum. Its solution smallest at the very end. But because
was to apply a regular division design of all of the constantly changing radi-
inspired by Dutch artist M.C. Escher, uses, these types of plenums can be
in which irregular shapes, or combina- extremely expensive to make. In fact,
tions of shapes, interlock completely it’s actually so expensive to make the
to cover a surface or plane. Accord- plenum that way that it has made the
ing to Cree, what Addex devised is single-plenum air rings significantly
a patent-pending, dual-counterflow more expensive compared to multi-
plenum design with one circular chan- ple-plenum ones. The channels in this
nel flowing clockwise all around, and new design are round, therefore it
a second going in the opposite direc- becomes much easier to make.”
tion all the way around. This creates At its pilot line in Newark, N.Y., Ad-
the Escher “equal and opposite” ef- dex switched between the new sin-
fect, resulting in uniform combined air gle-inlet design and the multi-inlet
flowing through the air ring. unit, both without auto-gauge con-

Allrounder 720 E Golden Electric: First World Premiere in the USA

n an unprecedented move, for the same name upwards and is the high- ponent quality with low investment
Ifirst time a new machine from Ar- light at NPE 2024 in Orlando, Florida, costs and short delivery times.
burg is celebrating its world premiere USA. Streamlined in terms of installa- "The fact that we are holding the
not in Germany, but on the interna- tion area and price – this summarises world premiere of the new electric
tional stage. The new Allrounder 720 its main advantages. The new injec- machine at NPE2024 reflects the
E Golden Electric with a clamping tion moulding machine continues to great importance of the American
force of 2,800 kN extends the prod- stand out for its electric precision and market for Arburg, our leading posi-
uct range of the electric series of the process stability and offers high com-

PLASTICS NEWS 71
April 2024