Producing film using cast chill roll is a common and well established production technology .Modern industrial scale cast lines can run up to 2000 Kg/hr in order to improve profitability and efficiency. At this high line speeds, it is not any more possible to make quick trials or to test different potentials recipes or structures.
Pilot cast lines can be very powerful tools to optimize performance and cost. These line are built to mimic real production systems and therefore all important details have been considered to ensure a good match when up-scaling the results to industrial production lines.
The costs involved in testing on pilot lines are trivial compared to running trials on production lines. In the meantime our pilot lines are designed to collect and store all relevant production parameters during each test run in order to provide later s meaningful conclusion.
Our cast lines are modular and can be configured to each industrial requirement. The application portfolio should be well defined from the early beginning to ensure that the line is perfectly suited for the targeted product spectrum. Different options and features can be integrated based on customer requirements.
Dosing System
To guarantee a steady and controlled flow of material to the extruders, we integrate our high accuracy gravimetric dosing system with the following features:
- Main hopper for free flowing granules
- Standard weighing hopper 200 mm
- Weighing load cell and hopper holder
- Shut-off device in the hopper frame
- Standard aluminium hopper
- Integrated switch box
Extruders
The MaxTec® high performance extruders are able to provide excellent homogeneity of melt at low and safe extrusion temperature. The optimized screw geometry enables a relatively wide processing window.
All the extruder components are integrated in a stand-alone compact unit mounted on wheels. Additionally, the extruder is adjustable in height to enable the easy and quick connection of different extruder units. This compact and modular design concept requires the lowest installation space and facilitates for future upgrade of the complete line.
A wide range of screw designs are available to satisfy different requirements and applications. The standard three-zone screw, barrier screw, and variable barrier energy transfer screw are the most common types. Other types of screws and special designs are also available for special applications.
Feed Block
The function of the feed block is to arrange different melt streams in a certain sequence or layer arrangement. This will later determine the number of layers in the film and the way they are arranged. After the layers are arranged as desired , they are guided to the die head to form the final shape of the product. By utilizing a selector plug it is possible to gain more flexibility in terms of layer structure and distribution. This could be considered as an advantage for cast technology over blown technology.
Flat Die
Our flat die are designed to efficiently spread the coextruded material coming from the feed block while maintaining the flatness of each individual layer. This feature is very critical as it finally impacts the individual layer thickness tolerances. The optimized flow design allows for minimum residence time and material degradation. Different die sizes and configurations are available based on individual customer requirements.
Chill Roll
The chill rolls are chrome plated with mirror-like surface finish to ensure optimum heat transfer and thus very fast cooling. Water is used as a cooling medium and is continuously circulating in a closed loop system. The complete assembly is integrated in one compact platform with easy access to different components and ergonomic design.
Winder
High quality Winders are essential to obtain quality rolls. Both surface and center winding are available depending on the final winding quality required. Different features are included based on the particular application. This includes, edge trimming, slitting station, edge trim collection system, corona treatment unit, and web inspection system.