Page 55 - Plastics News December 2022

TECHNOLOGY

The e-flomo temperature-control tems available as part of Engel’s inject one click in case of a batch change.
water manifold system monitors and 4.0 programme. These can be activat- Further efficiency gains can result
regulates flow rate, pressure, temper- ed and deactivated to enable visitors from the automatic determination of
ature, and temperature differences. to the trade show to track functional- optimum holding pressure time being
On the basis of these measurement ity live, highlighting the major benefits lower than the holding pressure time
values, the smart iQ flow control as- of specific iQ solutions in terms of set initially. In these cases, cycle time
sistance system actively regulates the day-to-day challenges of injection is reduced and energy use decreases.
the temperature difference in all in- molding. Experts from Engel will pre- Another highlight is the iQ process ob-
dividual circuits. This means that the sent various scenarios illustrating such server, which keeps track of hundreds
thermal conditions in the mold remain topics as energy efficiency and part of parameters in all four phases of the
constant at all times, even if there are quality, even where raw materials are injection molding process — plasticiz-
systemic fluctuations. The result is subject to batch fluctuations. ing, injection, cooling, and demolding.
high repeatability and minimal cooling IQ hold control, the new smart as- Through continuous analysis, the iQ
water and energy consumption, said sistant for nominal values that deter- process observer enables fast diagno-
Engel. mines the ideal holding pressure time, sis of quality variations. The software
Further, the integration of e-temp will also be highlighted. Holding pres- incorporates intelligent drift detec-
temperature control units into the sure time typically is determined em- tion, which can be used to indicate
CC300 control unit of the injection pirically, which takes a long time and process changes proactively, thereby
molding machine via OPC UA delivers consumes a lot of raw materials. The keeping the number of rejects under
additional energy savings. In the inte- iQ hold control system puts an end control.
grated Engel system, the speed of the to this waste. The assistance system The e-mac is tailored to the needs of
temperature control water pumps is analyzes mold breathing and pinpoints the medium performance segment,
automatically adapted to match actual the position of the plasticizing screw which is typified by cycle times of
demand. in order to calculate the ideal holding four or more seconds. The machines
Optimal holding pressure at a pressure time and pass this on to the in this series are suited for technical
click set-up technician. molding applications and the packag-
In addition to iQ flow control, the Holding pressure time is determined ing and medical sectors as well as the
e-mac machine on display will be objectively, meaning that even less ex- teletronics industry.
equipped with all of the assistance sys- perienced process technicians can ad-
just the process parameters with just

Recycled PET at Core of Honeycomb Panels

installed a new production line for honeycomb technology have been
lightweight honeycombs based on triggered by an increasing demand
recycled PET (rPET). The EconCore and market shift toward the use of
group comprises EconCore NV in more recyclable materials, said Econ-
Belgium and Germany’s ThermHex Core.
Waben GmbH focusing on production “Over the past years we have been
of polypropylene (PP) honeycomb extending the range of applications
cores. of our PP honeycomb technology,
The rPET honeycomb cores are made where its cost and weight efficiency,
of up to 100% recycled post-consum- combined with excellent recyclabil-
er and post-industrial waste. They ity, were allowing for dynamic mar-
can be laminated with PET or PET ket evolutions. Then, recognizing the
conCore, a global leader in cost- composite skins to produce fully re- global problem of agglomerated PET
Eeffective honeycomb sandwich cyclable, sustainable, and lightweight waste, we decided to optimize the
material production technology, has
panels. The developments of rPET technology toward rPET materials,”

December 2022 PLASTICS NEWS 55