News, Eventi e Stampa

July 6, 2011

Using less to produce more; this was the rallying cry that accompanied the VIP event held at Engel's headquarters in Schwertberg, Austria.

The event was the result of synergy between Engel, Inglass and Gefit. Although working independently in their respective markets, the three partners brought their strengths together to offer potential customers optimal cap and closure production solutions - a sector on the constant look out for innovation, efficient means of reducing costs and optimising operations.

A select group of end users were offered the opportunity to watch a new 2.2 gram carbonated mineral water cap in PCO 1881 being molded on a 280-ton Engel press.  The press is part of the new E-caps series. It operates solely on electricity and is able to guarantee an optimal level of quality thanks to an innovative injection unit combined with a specially-designed toggle clamping unit to achieve fast clamping operations.

The press housed a 72-cavity mold made by Gefit from Fubine, Alessandria. The mold was produced by combining innovative Miwa Daisy technology and an HRS Flow Hot Half from the new Multitech product range.  Using a lower tonnage E-cap 280 with this tooling combination optimised energy consumption to such extents that achieving a first rate result was easy.

The main innovation lies in the compact size of the mold, which is far inferior to traditional molds housing the same number of cavities. These reduced dimensions allow not only the use of a press with a lower clamping force but, first and foremost, an energy saving of as much as 50%.  The Miwa Daisy developed by Gefit employs a mechanical system where the pressure used at the opening stroke for the independent petals to release the cap prior to ejection is lower than slides traditionally employed.

The Multitech Hot Half system by Inglass-HRSflow boasts a cutting-edge technological design that employs integrated plates and robust solutions at all critical points. The system has been developed complete with an optimized thermal gate to give cycle times and finished piece quality equivalent, or superior, to results from a valve gate system.  Finely-tuned tests and fluid dynamic analysis enabled developers to optimise the thermal profile. This, as a result, guarantees not only significant energy saving but also facilitates fast efficient mold start-up.  This Hot Half incorporates the new MTF39 (Multitech Fast) series nozzle which has been specially designed to improve the heat barrier towards the cavity by reducing the size of the contact area between the mold plates.  However, the most innovative feature of the new nozzle is the tip.  Advanced FEM simulation was used to optimize its geometry and select the combination of materials used.  The result is optimal thermal distribution at the gate area reducing mould cavity surface wear and zero maintenance requirements even in high production volumes.

The mechanical and heat balancing of the manifolds combined with precision workmanship guarantees a high degree of consistency for each manufactured part with a maximum weight variance of +/- 1% between all 72 cavities each cycle.  Thanks to internal channel balancing and tip housing geometry, the cavities remains clean between tip and housing during the injection phase and significantly reduce the amount of material stagnation.  Balancing and geometry also result in a quick colour change occurring on average for this mould within only 60 shots (~140g per cavity for a 2.2 gram cap).