Multiscrew
Wood Tubes Close-Up
Hollow tubing with a high loading of wood fiber is one of the newest products—and one of the trickiest—in the booming ´óÏó´«Ã½ of wood-filled thermoplastic extrusion.
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'Chaotic Advection' Creates New Polymer Blend Morphologies
A continuous blending device called the SmartBlender is creating polymer blends with novel properties by folding the two melts together, rather than distributing one evenly throughout the other.
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Weather Testing: Why You Need It More Than Ever
If you think your product doesn't warrant weather testing, you could be in for a rude surprise. Any time you change a material formulation or use it in a new application you run the risk of uv-induced failure.
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Composites Show Introduces Reinforcements, Fillers and Additives
Pultrusion, filament winding, SMC, BMC, polymer concrete, and advanced composites are targets for new reinforcing fibers, fabrics, fillers, and other additives introduced at the recent Composites 2003 Show in Anaheim, Calif.
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TP Composites: New Option in Lightweight PP/Glass Composites
From its Detroit-area offices, Swiss-based Quadrant Plastics Composites (QPC) has introduced a family of lightweight reinforced thermoplastic (LWRT) composites to North America.
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Garbage In, Good Plastics Out
Experts consider it the most high-tech recycling plant in the world: Schwarzataler Kunststoff in Germany takes dirty bottles and film from post-consumer recycling and turns them into automotive and other compounds in a fully automated process.
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NPE News Wrap-Up: Compounding
For nano-, long-glass, and wood composites, exhibitors presented new systems with four screws, tandem twin-screws, and twin-plus-single-screw combinations
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Torque & Speed How Much Is Enough?
You may be thinking of buying one of the new ‘high-torque/high-speed’ twin-screw compounders in order to raise your output without going to a larger machine. But how much torque or speed do you really need? Underusing a high-powered extruder wastes investment dollars. So look carefully at what is required for the materials you run.
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Compounding (K 2001 Preview)
Compounding equipment at K presents not so much new technology as new modifications or combinations of equipment to improve output and conserve space.
Read MoreCompounding & Mixing
For the second straight NPE show, the focus in compounding is on twin-screw machines that deliver more speed and torque—thus more output—than ever before. No fewer than six suppliers of twin-screw compounders are showing such machines. There’s something to see in in-line systems as well. And there’s plenty of news in PVC mixers and pelletizing equipment, too.
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