event review | Compounding World Forum
The Com- pounding World Forum provided lots of networking opportunities during the breaks
extruder wear mechanisms and showed how to answer the key question, “Where is the wear?”, for abrasive wear issues, as well as how to diagnose corrosive and adhesive wear.
manager for Entek. He described key aspects of the upstream material handling system, extruder, pel- letizer, and finished goods handling. Beginning with the end in mind is helpful for designing a successful line, and modelling of the finished line allows planning for operator and maintenance accessibility. Paul Anderson, director of process technology at
Coperion, reviewed the melting process in the twin- screw compounding extruder and explained how to avoid common pitfalls. For example, he noted, screw configurations need to be designed for adding pigment and filler, if those are part of a formulation. Appropriate use of barrel heating is another priority, and operators should be careful not to melt polymer prematurely by overheating the barrel, he cautioned. Vent flooding is another common problem, and Bert
Elliott, engineering manager at Leistritz, explained the concept of venting and reviewed best practices for avoiding vent flooding. For example, screw elements with high surface renewal improve devolatilization efficiency, and a long pitch can help prevent vent flooding. Extruder wear is an issue that compounding
operations must learn to identify in order to eliminate or minimize the problem. Adam Dreiblatt, director of process technology at Century Extrusion, explained
22 COMPOUNDING WORLD | January 2015
Compounding equipment Mixing is the heart of the compounding process. Babu Padmanabhan, founder and managing director of Steer Engineering, reviewed the factors that affect mixing and explained the mixing action occurring in different screw elements in a twin-screw extruder. He proposed that a lack of shear uniformity restricts higher operation speeds and that avoidance of pressure peaks improves uniformity, and he demonstrated this with study data. Twin-screw extruders and reciprocating kneaders
are different equipment types with distinct strengths and weaknesses, but the TriVolution Kneader is a next-generation compounding system that has demonstrated quantifiable benefits in compounding trials, said Michael Lazorchak, global product manager for mixing systems at B&P Process Equipment and Systems. He discussed customer experiences in qualifying the TriVolution Kneader.
The next event The next Compounding World Forum will be held in Philadelphia, PA, USA on 8-9 December 2015. If your company is interested in giving a presentation at the conference, then please send your suggested paper title, a brief outline of its contents, plus the name and job title of your proposed speaker to Andy Beevers at Compound- ing World magazine (
abe@amiplastics.com) by 17 April. If you would like to participate in the event as a delegate, exhibitor or sponsor, then please contact the conference coordinator Kelly Cressman at
kc@amiplastics-na.com, tel: +1 610 478 0800. The Compounding World Forum 2015 website can be found at
http://bit.ly/CWF15HP.
www.amiconferences.com
www.compoundingworld.com
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