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ANCILLARY EQUIPMENTS IN PLASTICS
Ancillaries in plastics are all those equipments that facilitates and support the
primary processing machine to produce the product in required quantities and have
desired quality. They exist from the movement, storage, control and protection of
material throughout the process of its production, distribution, consumption, and
disposal.
Material Handling is simply the physical movement of material from one location to
another. For plastics industry it is handling of the plastic resin, be it in pellet, granule,
powder or flakes forms, from its delivery to its storage in silos or bins and then its
distribution to the processing equipment, i.e. an extruder hopper. The handling,
movement or conveying of plastic resins can be through:
Mechanical conveyors: They assist in moving raw materials or products from one
place to another in the working premise, or through various stages of automated
manufacturing. Belt conveyors are the most common, followed by chain conveyors,
roller conveyors, spiral conveyors, overhead conveyors, vertical conveyors and
conveyor systems, which may use combinations of many different conveyor types.
Automated conveying systems: The material is moved through a pipe at a
velocity in a stream-like state of suspension. The system uses a vacuum pump with
or without pressure blower assembly to pull the plastic resin from the storage space
to the production area.
Hopper Loaders: These are used to load the plastic material for the source to the
machine hopper automatically, without human intervention. The inbuilt timers
activates at designated time filling up the hopper with the material. This reduces
manpower cost, prevents spillage, material losses and provides efficiency, safety,
hygiene, cost effectiveness automation and eliminates contamination in large
manufacturing facilities.
Blenders: One of the primary goals in any plastic manufacturing process is the
consistent and homogenous melting and blending of resins. Blenders offer the
digital accuracy and rugged dependability that make process line more efficient.
Blending systems are fully integrated, multi-material dispensing and mixing devices
designed to precisely and consistently combine materials together prior to plastic
processing and create a blended material in pre-determined proportions.
Deceptively simple in appearance, the compact blenders which are available with
touch screen control can individually weighs from 2 to 20 ingredients and blend
them accurately. Blenders can combine materials by volume (volumetric) or by
weight (gravimetric) and may operate either continuously (typical for extrusion) or
by batch (typical for injection moulding). A more accurate blend means higher
product quality at the end.
Metal Detectors and Separators: Mounted directly on the material inlet of the
machine, the metal separators are used to remove micro metal particles (both
ferrous and non-ferrous contaminants) from regrind, recycled and virgin material.
Very often tiny metal particles in the melt can cause causes heavy damage to the
plasticizing screw or barrel, resulting in costly breakdowns during injection / blow
moulding and extrusion process. Most commonly a Magnetic metal ring is kept
inside hoper in small production facilities.
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