ENGLISH
Injection machinery maker Engel Austria GmbH will launch a new all-electric molding machine designed specifically for production of plastics caps and closures at the K show in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Speaking at a briefing at the company’s headquarters in Schwertberg, Vice President for R&D Georg Steinbichler said the e-Cap machine is the first all-electric type to be designed specifically for cap production.
“No other machine in the market can produce caps and closures as economically as the e-Cap,” he said.
A 380-metric-ton version of the e-Cap design has been running for some time in Engel’s development laboratory at Schwertberg. However, the company will show a larger 420-metric-ton version at K 2010, which it says is more typical of the type of machine required to handle the high production rates and the 96-cavity tooling typical in this sector.
Key to the e-Cap’s high production efficiency is a newly designed injection unit with a special screw developed for high throughput plasticizing of packaging grade polymers, as well as an uprated ejector system, Steinbichler said.
At the K show, the 420-ton machine will be fitted with a 96-cavity mold producing 26mm diameter “x-light” closures on a 2.6-second cycle time.
According to Engel, the e-Cap has potential to bring faster cycle times and higher outputs to the plastics caps and closures market, which it estimates amounts to some 750 billion molded components a year worldwide.
A major attraction of the machine will be low energy consumption of its electric drive technology. Steinbichler said energy typically accounts for 7.1 percent of overall cost of plastics caps and closure production, making it the second largest production cost after material (which accounts for a typical 67.5 percent of the total).
Steinbichler said other significant costs include molds (6.4 percent), machinery (4.8 percent) and personnel and labor (3.5 percent).
Caps and closures represent a very interesting and fast growing niche in the overall plastics packaging marketplace.
According to Basingstoke, England-based beverage market and packaging analyst Canadean Ltd., global demand for caps and closures for beverage applications alone grew by an average rate of close to 4 percent a year since 2002; and even last year it posted an increase of 1.8 percent. Canadean estimates plastics account for more than 58 percent of global closure demand (excluding can ends).
From:http://plasticsnews.com
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