PT Blog

Rikutec Group of Germany, a specialist in blow molding large parts—both a processor and machine builder—has introduced what it says is the packaging industry’s first all-plastic drum that meets the highly stringent demands of Packaging Group 1 regulations specified by the ADR European agency for safe storage and transport of highly aggressive chemicals. The blow molded “tank in a tank” requires no secondary container and also meets U.S. Dept. of Transportation regulations. “Rikutec has developed the highest rated dual-containment drum in the industry,” says Andreas Amberg, president of Rikutec America.

New technology for tighter control of cold-runner injection of multicavity LSR parts, and for optimizing LSR process control at the mold-design stage are two of five presentations on liquid silicone molding at the upcoming Molding 2109 Conference in Indianapolis March 19-21. Leading off the Wednesday afternoon LSR session will be Gabriel Geyne of Sigmasoft Virtual Molding, with exciting news of enhanced mold-filling simulation that performs automated Design of Experiments (DOE) many times faster than possible with a human operator. Autonomous Optimization software can perform thousands of experiments without human intervention. What’s more, the software focuses the experiments toward achieving goals set by the operator, performing only those runs that help zero in on an optimized result. (Read more here.)

Though equally suited to thermoplastic injection molding, this presentation will examine a challenging LSR application that was demonstrated at Fakuma 2018 in Germany. By performing more than 60 different simulations, the software identified the optimal filling time, gate positions, and position, length and temperature of electric heaters in the mold (more details here).

The Swiss Guard is the group that guards the Pope while serving as the private army of Vatican City. Not much uniform-wise has changed from the group since the 1500s—colorful hues of the House of Medici in blue, red, orange and yellow, topped with a helmet bearing a crest of red plumes. But the oldest standing army was due for an update.

HP helped replace the metal helmets with 3D-printed PA-12 plastic ones that are durable, lightweight, weather-proof and much cooler, thanks to ventilation channels inside, the company says. 

Do your technicians have to scramble to steer a molding process back on course after it was thrown off-track by raw-material variations? If so, you’ll want to hear how to overcome such problems automatically at the Tuesday afternoon session on Medical, Packaging & Precision Molding at the Molding 2019 Conference, March 19-21, in Indianapolis.

You’ll hear Gene Altonen of iMFLUX, the new Procter & Gamble subsidiary, present the latest enhancements to the iMFLUX constant-low-pressure molding process, which initial users are reportedly finding to have remarkable advantages in molding parts faster with lower energy consumption and reduced warpage and molded-in stress.

Most injection molders can quickly assess their productivity and efficiency in hard numbers they continuously collect. In a couple clicks, they can reliably ascertain just how good they are at turning pellets into parts and selling machine time to their customers at any given time.

What they can’t know is how good they are compared to the molder down the street or across the country—until now. Plastics Technology is launching its Top Shops Program for injection molding—a comprehensive survey that upon completion will include a special, customized report for your plant that lets you see how you stack up across multiple metrics to other injection molding facilities. All survey data collected are kept 100 percent confidential.