MACHINERY | RECYCLING & GRANULATORS
Veka to build PVC recycling plant in UK
Veka, the German window profile manufacturer, is to build a new PVC recyling plant in the UK. The company will invest £8m in the facility – in Wellingborough – and plans to have it fully operational by early 2019. The plant will recycle PVC window
and door profiles, and is expected to create around 50 jobs. According to Veka, the 5.5 acre plant will be “the most sophisticated of its type installed anywhere in Europe”. Veka Recycling already has a UK plant in Swanscombe, which collects
Performance boost Neue Herbold Maschinen- und Anlagenbau has re-engineered its ZM 800 pulveriser to further boost performance, says the company. One innovation is the stream technique optimi-
sation of the machine housing. In the past, ma- chines of this type were made with a round housing on a platform. The new housing passage now has a curved design. This was done because the material’s angular momentum is used for the discharge, as the material is pre-accelerated for the subsequent air conveying. The redesign allows higher throughput rates to be generated, while the energy consumption remains unchanged. Beside technical aspects, design and ergonom-
Below: Rapid has invested €4.5m in new machinery at its Bredaryd headquarters in Sweden, allowing it to make core
components in much higher volumes
ics were an important part of the process. The standard machine extensions – such as the vibro- feeder, or mounting bracket for the vacuum feeder – blend into one compact machine concept with clear lines, says the company. Meanwhile, all parts are easily accessible. One modification includes an optimised door lock, which operates very efficiently and with less space requirements. Cables, connec- tions and sensors are now in a central processing unit. The control unit for water injection, consisting of valves and sensors, is now in an easy accessible, protected housing.
and compresses PVC waste and transports it to Veka’s recycling plant in Behringen, Germany. “The new plant allows us to take
and reprocess even more – and within the UK,” said Simon Scholes, commer- cial director. �
www.veka-recycling.co.uk
Tight tolerances Equipment manufacturer Rapid Granulator has made a large investment in machining equipment at its headquarters in Bredaryd, Sweden. It says that the installation of three high-preci-
sion, automated machining centres, for a total investment of €4.5 million, will boost capacity to produce core components to very tight tolerances, while improving overall process flow. A new ‘Done-in-One’ turning and milling machine was installed last year, followed by a horizontal machining centre. The machining centres are fully integrated with a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) centre, involving automatic rail-guided vehicles that can run without operator intervention. Because the ‘Done-in-One’ machine can perform both turning and milling, Rapid can produce major components like rotors in a single step. Before, this job required several separate setups. Components produced on the new equipment will be used in granulators that Rapid makes in Bredaryd and also at its US facility in Pittsburgh. “In future, we will be able to produce tolerance- critical components in much bigger numbers and in larger sizes in-house than before,” said Bengt Rimark, Rapid’s CEO. “Machining for us is a core technology. We need to maintain very high accuracy and precision, so it is very important that we have complete control over production of the principal components in the cutter housings.” The investment was made in order to overcome
a bottleneck in the company’s machining centres. The new machining centres in Bredaryd will produce the key machine components for all Rapid granulators. These have a direct influence on the granule quality generated in the cutting process. “You have to convert your scrap material into high quality regrind, so you can feed it back into the production process without affecting the production process. Your regrind will then get the same value as your virgin raw material, generating huge savings,” said Rimark.
24 PIPE & PROFILE EXTRUSION | April 2018
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www.pipeandprofile.com
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