NPE REVIEW | NEWS Standing out at NPE 2018
We pick out some high- lights from the recent NPE 2018 show, which are of relevance to film and sheet extruders
Exhibitors at the recent NPE show in the USA were a mix of large and small, offering both new materials and machinery to the gathered visitors. The Plastics Industry Association, which organ- ised the show, said it was the biggest NPE in history – with more than 2,180 exhibitors occupying a space exceeding 1.2m square feet. During NPE, US film
extruder Sigma Plastics signed a deal to buy three Davis-Standard film lines – one 2.5m cast film hygiene line and two five-layer agricultural blown film stretch lines. The cast hygiene line – scheduled for installation this year – is the second of its kind purchased by Sigma in the last three years. It will be engineered for A/B/A structures with in-line printing capabilities. The five-layer stretch lines will include Davis-Standard Optiflow LP dies and vertical oscillating haul-off technology. “Davis-Standard has been
exemplary at supporting our business demands and growth,” said Alfred Teo, chairman of Sigma Plastics. Sigma has been a
Davis-Standard customer for 40 years and operates more than 350 of its lines at 42 manufacturing facilities in North America – accounting
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output lines for its Allied Extruders division – in three-layer and five-layer versions. Both incorporate Ultra Cool and Ultra Flat technologies.
Blown film lines featured prominently at the show
for an annual throughput of more than 2 billion pounds (around 900,000 tonnes) of resin.
Windmöller & Hölscher announced the sale of nine blown film lines to Sigma, taking the company’s complement of W&H lines to 40.
Six Optimax FFS lines will be installed and commis- sioned before the end of the summer at Sigma’s Republic Bags facility at Houston in Texas. They will produce sacks to package the growing volume of PE resin exports being pro- duced at plants in the region following recent shale-related investments. The Republic Bags investment is Sigma’s first in the FFS sack film market. The Optimax lines will produce multicolour printed and gusseted PE films ready for the FFS packaging equip- ment. Sigma estimates a total annual throughput of 20,000 tonnes across the six lines. W&H also finalised an
order for two Varex II blown film lines for converter-grade
films for Sigma’s McNeeley Plastics operation at Clinton in Massachusetts. The order includes three and five-layer lines both equipped with Filmatic S winders with reverse wind capability. The five-layer line is also equipped with W&H’s TurboClean automated resin purging system, which was introduced at K2016 and can reduce changeover times to as little as 12 minutes. The ninth line – a 5-layer
Varex system - has just started operation at Sigma’s IsoFlex plant at Washington in Indiana. IsoFlex produces a variety of specialty films for shrink, barrier, laminating and coating applications. These purchases come hot on the heels of Sigma’s order of four co-extrusion blown film lines from Reifenhäuser of Germany. For its BJK operation in Louisville, Kentucky, Sigma ordered two high output, five-layer PE dedicated lines – including Ultra Cool IBC and an Ultra Flat inline flattening system. Sigma also ordered two high
Taking the heat PSI-Polymer Systems introduced two late-stage developments for proces- sors of rigid PVC – a high performance screenchanger and gear pump. Both are claimed to overcome the challenges presented by the material’s sensitivity to thermal exposure. “Rigid PVC is the material
that nobody designs for as it has its own particular processing problems,” said PSI general manager Don Macnamara. “Flexible PVC has a broad processing window and is quite easy to work with, but rigids are a different story.” The key challenge is the thermal sensitivity of the polymer. Extended interrup- tions of the melt flow, such as those required to change a screen filter, can result in material picking up heat and burning while any transi- tions or steps in the flow path can create shear heating, which has a similar negative result. PSI’s solution is to
replace the mechanical clamping systems typically found on a traditional screenchanger with its own Expansion Plate design. This employs expansion and contraction of thermal bolts to allow the screenchanger plate to be released, moved then clamped again. In
June 2018 | FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION 13
PHOTO: NPE2018
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