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March 05, 2020 10:51 AM

New generation e-cap machine meets cap producers' tough new challenges

Sustainable Plastics
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    ENGEL

    Caps are becoming lighter and lighter, posing increasing challenges for injection moulding machine technology.

    As the requirements for the production of caps become increasingly exacting, machines manufacturers are scrambling to design machines that perform accordingly. The latest offering from Engel is the new generation e-cap and it is a case in point.

    The Austria-based plastics processing machinery manufacturer presented the first  - at the time, revolutionary - all-electric e-cap injection moulding machine at K 2010. To date, says Engel, the e-cap remains the most energy-efficient cap machine on the market. It is also one providing all-electric operation with a clamping force range that reaches 4,200 kN.

    However, since 2010, the requirements for beverage caps have changed substantially, with continuous part weight reductions playing a central role, said Friedrich Mairhofer, product manager for all-electric injection moulding machines at Engel. Caps on still water bottles aweigh ‘significantly less than one gram’, he explained.

    “As a result, the cooling and cycle times have continued to drop. Where the cycle times ten years ago were still 2.5 seconds, today's cap machines need to be able to produce at 2-second intervals and faster.”

    This requires a highly stable machine bed to handle more frequent load cycles. Engel said it achieved cycle times under 2 seconds during tests on an e-cap 380, thanks to the fast dry cycle times of 1.3 seconds and parallel movement capability  - included as standard, the company added.

    New is the switchable hydraulic booster on the direct-drive servo-electric ejectors that can provide additional force to remove caps in situations – for example, after an interruption in production - when these caps have cooled. As Engel explained, such situations occur relatively infrequently, making it more efficient to use servo-hydraulic drive amplification than to equip the machine unnecessarily powerful ejector drives.

    In addition, the new e-cap features a redesigned plasticising unit, as the properties of the materials to be processed have also changed in order to be able to produce lower-weight caps. The melt flow index of the HDPE grades used for carbonated soft drink caps today is between 0.8 and 1.4 g/10 min. With very short cycle times, these values require particularly high plasticising rates. This was achieved by increasing the torque of the plasticising drive and developing both a new plasticising screw that is able to gently process high-viscosity HDPE  and a new highly wear-resistant sliding ring non-return valve specifically for cap manufacture.

    With its all-electric drive technology, the machine is highly energy efficient: among others, braking energy is recuperated, reliably preventing the need for expensive peak power. According to Engel, the e-cap 380 operates at high speed with an energy consumption of 0,37 kWh per kilogram of pellets.

    The new e-cap is available in the sizes 220, 280, 380 and 420 with clamping forces from 2,200 to 4,200 kN.

    Engel

    The Engel e-cap 380

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