New extrusion heads yield uniform pipe

At K 2019 in October, the company will display two new pipe heads based on its Spider line. The Spider NG pipe heads on display will include a monolayer head and a three-layer model. The “NG” in the name stands for “New Generation.”

The company is upgrading the mono-layer and the multilayer pipe heads in its Spider line with the NG technology. There are numerous sizes available for extruding single-layer pipe with diameters ranging from 6mm to 710mm, and multilayer pipe with diameters from 32mm to 710mm.

The NG pipe heads already have been deployed at some customers’ sites for production testing.

“Their low material consumption and narrow tolerances are delivering impressive results across the board,” Battenfeld-Cincinnati said in a press release.

The optimized design results in more uniform pipe wall thickness, preventing areas that are thicker than required.

“The monolayer NG has optimized material volumes, pressure zones and parallel land to improve the overweight” areas of the pipe, said Paul Godwin, president and CEO of Battenfeld-Cincinnati USA.

The three-layer head’s new design ensures excellent flushing, a key feature particularly for highly filled compact pipes, PVC pipes with a foamed middle layer and pipes with a regrind middle layer.

In pipe heads that exhibit excellent flushing, material moves consistently, with no stagnation or velocity variation. That’s important because, if the velocity in the melt channels is inconsistent, the thickness of the pipe’s layers will show variations. With the new design, the thickness of each of the three layers is more accurate and consistent, Godwin said.

At K 2019 in Germany, the pipe heads will be presented alongside compatible extruders. The heads are designed primarily to work with counter-rotating twin-screw extruders, but they also can be used with some single-screw extruders.

Battenfeld-Cincinnati also will demonstrate its new DTA 160 cutting machine for cutting polyolefin and PVC pipes to customers’ length specifications quickly, precisely and cleanly.

A highlight of the new unit is that it works without hydraulics, which results in a 60 percent weight reduction compared with conventional systems. Also, it works much faster, the company said.

Bruce Geiselman, senior staff reporter

[email protected]

Contact:

Battenfeld-Cincinnati USA  McPherson, Kan., 620-241-6843,

www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com