news | Open house report Right: Arburg has
commenced pilot
deliveries of its largest machine to date, the 650 tonne Allrounder 1120
first injection machine to use the company’s new Gestica control system (the basic hardware and structure is also used in the Freeformer control system). Gaub described it as a high level controller that will eventually become the preferred option on all of its high end machines. However, he said the timescale for its introduction beyond the 1120 is still open and it is not an option that will be forced on custom- ers. “The proven Selogica system will be kept. We will give it a facelift but we will let the customer decide what they want to use,” he said. Gaub said the company
expects to take the first open orders for the Allrounder 1120 from Fakuma in October, with deliveries commencing in the second quarter of 2018.
Turnkey solutions Fully automated turnkey production cells continue to play an important part in the Arburg product offering and represented 17% of total sales in 2016, up from 15% the previ- ous year. It is an area that has seen considerable investment in recent years. Last year, for example, the company opened an 18,600m2
manufacturing
hall designed to support production and assembly of turnkey production systems. It houses 77 machine test stands, including 38 dedicated to more complex turnkey automation projects, and is now in full operation. Hehl said the company is
also investing to further develop the technical consult- ing expertise required to support turnkey projects. This
Arburg’s Gestica control, standard on the new Allrounder 1120, will become a standard high-end offering
includes areas such as automation, lightweight construction, medical technology and packaging, as well as broader manufacturing support services such as factory planning and Industry 4.0. This year, work will start on a new 13,700m2
multi-
storey building to enhance its abilities to offer customer training and seminars. Arburg has also extended its
consulting activities into the additive manufacturing sector with the formation of the Arburg Prototyping Centre, a new section within the company’s Plastic Freeforming unit that houses six Freeformer machines capable of producing 3D printed parts in any of six qualified materials. Gaub says the unit is not intended as a production resource but as a means to quickly benchmark designs. It is available to potential Freeformer buyers as well as to existing customers that may want to avoid time-consuming material changeovers on their own equipment (changing materials often involves a complete nozzle change and screw clean). During the Technology Days
The Arburg Prototyping Centre has been set up to support Freeformer additive manufacturing customers
16 INJECTION WORLD | March/April 2017
event, one of the Freeformer machines was demonstrating additive production of a compo- nent in aerospace-approved
PEI material. While the Freeformer machines have an obvious application in prototyp- ing, Gaub sees the aerospace sector – together with medical – as a key potential market for production of low volume or individualised versions of existing designs. Gaub said the Freeformer
can process a growing range of polymers including PP, ABS, PC, PA, amorphous PA, flame retarded ABS/PC blends, TPU and Ultem PEI and Arburg is evaluating new additions. The two key material
challenges in terms of additive manufacturing are shrinkage (especially challenging with semi-crystalline polymers) and abrasion. “We have made several metal and ceramic [powder] parts but the ‘problem’ is the nozzle; there is a high rate of wear,” he says. Arburg’s engineers are confident that filler wear issues can be overcome. However, processing of fibre reinforced materials presents an additional challenge as the fibres tend to block in the nozzle. “Powder, if it is very small, is OK. But fibres, we do not think so,” Gaub said. “At Fakuma we will show how we can do that in a different way. Additive manufacturing but not through a nozzle.”
www.injectionworld.com
PHOTO: ARBURG
PHOTO: ARBURG
PHOTO: ARBURG
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