Packaging | thin wall moulding
Thinner, lighter, faster… and a great deal cheaper
The drive to improve performance and cut cost in thin-walled packaging production continues apace. Packaging producers, injection moulding equipment suppliers and mould makers are all responding with numerous innovations, many of which were on display at the Fakuma show in Germany last October. Perhaps the most innovative of these is what is claimed to be the fi rst commercial application of injection-compression moulding with a multi-cavity stack mould. Packaging company Coveris developed the produc-
tion technology in a joint project with consumer goods manufacturer Unilever and French mould maker Plastisud. Injection moulding equipment producer Netstal – a KraussMaffei Group brand - also played an important role. The development of the new technology started in 2011, with the fi rst industrial injection compression IML system successfully launched at the beginning of this year. The production system compris- es a 4+4 stack mould with integrated in-mould label (IML) decoration for production of probably the lightest 500g Eurotubs yet, primarily for packaging spreads. The production injection moulding system ran
successfully on a trial basis for several months in the Coveris Centre of Excellence for IM-IML in Ravensburg, Germany, before going into commercial production in December. The Ravensburg plant also processes
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Packaging specialists are responding to demands for lighter packs with a range of thin wall innovations. Peter Mapleston reports
materials from Coveris divisions in other countries, for instance the 40µm in-mould labels used in the EU Food & Consumer Business Unit in Angoulème, France (which are claimed to be the thinnest labels currently in the market). The new injection-compression technology achieves
up to 20% weight savings as a result of a wall thickness reduction while keeping the high mechanical properties of the product. As the compression technology is integrated into the mould, it can be used on hydraulic and toggle machines, as well as full-electric types, according to Coveris. For the moment, Coveris is using a Netstal Elion unit – which features a hybrid fi ve-point toggle clamping system. Netstal point out that it has a lead in implementation of the technology, if only because it has developed the control software required to make the mould run on its equipment.
Main image: Plastisud’s
injection-com- pression stack mould design is claimed to be a world fi rst, cutting part
weight by as much as 20%
January/February 2016 | INJECTION WORLD 13
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