Successful results for Moretto at PLAST’09
At Plast’09, an exhibition that took place in Milan at the end of March, Moretto S.p.A. launched latest developments in its products range. The company, global leader in the production of automation for the processing of plastics, has introduced innovative solutions and cutting-edge technologies.
During the five day-event, over 700 visitors came to the stand to obtain information about the latest news. Numerous important projects were dis-cussed and a number of valuable commercial relations were forged. Due to the open and welcoming display of the exhibits, Moretto stood out among other exhibitors. The entire range of innovative products was pre-sent. Visitors were able to obtain valuable information about product fea-tures and benefits, including machine performances. Touch-screen panels provided easy access to all relevant data, as did information available di-rectly from the machines on show.
Considering the current economic situation, visitors showed particular in-terest in cost reduction and greater concern in the optimization of energy consumption. Linking high-tech design and performance efficiency with low energy consumption, thus providing tangible solutions to a wide range of customer requirements, products by Moretto have thus received wel-come approval by many visitors. Moretto S.p.A. constantly maintains its quest for continuous development of new applications and new solutions in the automation of plastics processing.
Latest innovations launched at PLAST ‘09 in world preview were:
- The new KK – KruiseKontrol, an exclusive transport system for plastic granules at constant speed
- The evolution of the Dry Air mini dryer that becomes X Dry Air, adopting the X Dryer technology
- Updating of the DGM gravimetric blender, where the control system has been completely improved by the application of a touch screen interface and new electronics
- The Quad, a new suction unit that permits connection of up to four three-phase hopper loaders.
These technologies will be launched on the Asian market on the occasion of Chinaplas that takes place in May, from 18th to 21st in Guangzhou. A further im-portant occasion for Moretto is the NPE in Chicago, one of the most important exhibitions for the USA market.
The most important news at Plast ’09 was the introduction of KruiseKon-trol, an evolution for solutions to classical problems like angel hair, stress defects due to speed, forming of powder caused by frictions and wear of flexible and rigid pipes. These problems, previously not able to be con-trolled, are eliminated with KruiseKontrol.
KruiseKontrol is a dynamic system, able to manage all the variables in a plastic granule transport system. Plastics are the basic raw materials for injection moulding, extrusion or blow moulding. They are available in granular form of different shapes, dimensions, in addition to bulk density or type. Composition, such a degree of softness in thermoplastics, is an additional raw material feature, such as the material for the rubber in pencils or material with the consistency of a pneumatic tyre.
These granules are introduced into a plasticizing chamber of a processing machine. Feeders are used to transport the granules from the hopper into the plasticizing chamber. These machines are equipped with a pump that sucks air through a pipe, thus transporting the plastic granules, which subsequently fall into the hopper below. If the plastic materials are sup-plied in bags, this operation takes place close to the machine, moving the material from bag to machine. Where large quantities of plastic material are involved, raw materials is brought in tank trucks and then loaded into silos. In this case, it may be necessary to transport materials for long dis-tances, more than 100 or 150 m and in large quantities, such as 1,000, 1,400 or 2,000 kg/h.
In this case, high power vacuum pumps are employed. With these pumps it is possible to organize systems that use only one vacuum unit able to ensure the continuous transport of granules to a number of processing machines. Of course there is only one vacuum pump with an appropriate power to guarantee the supply of the correct quantity of material for the relevant distance, also taking into consideration flow levels of less smooth materials, with higher quantities for the most difficult transport. These are centralized transport systems. The system is equipped with an electronic device that receives and manages the requests for every single machine. When a machine is not supplied with the minimum quantity of material required for operation, a signal is sent to the electronic system that starts the suction cycle. Each machine is connected to a suitable pipe linked to the machine from one side and to a single material storage from the other side.
When a request for material is received, the vacuum pump starts the cycle intercepting the machine that has requested the material. When another machine asks for material, the blower will transport the material assigned to that machine automatically. In some cases, it is possible to operate 20 processing machines requiring 20 different types of materials.
For the following reasons, transportation criteria for each type of material vary: Type of plastic material, mineral charge, shape, friction coefficient, bulk density, dimension of granules, quantity to be transported, distance to be covered, pipe diameter, pipe height, number of bends to be covered, type of vacuum pump, pump power
There are 13 variables that influence the transport of granules inside the pipes, recommended to operate at a speed of not more than 10-12 m/s on average. As already explained, the parameters for the choice of the trans-port system are decided according to the most complex material. The di-ameter of the pipes and the power of the pump are chosen according to the particular features of one or two of the materials.
Additional material types can not be taken into consideration, as there is only one pump. Even if the power could be changed, synchronization of the calibration for each material – cycle by cycle - would be difficult.
Such events can cause problems like the appearance of angel hairs and the forming of powder, to be avoided during the transformation. More-over, they can cause premature wear of the transport pipe, possibly lead-ing to perforation in the area of pipe bends and in flexible pipes.
To summarize, these are the issues that can arise in a traditional trans-port system that can ensure a supply of the plastic granule to the trans-former machines but, at the same time, presents problems not solved yet.
KruiseKontrol has been developed in order to achieve flexible transporta-tion, designed to obtain correct transportation according to the nature of every kind of granule used and, to avoid the possible problems described above, provide every material type with its own designated parameters.
KruiseKontrol intervenes by means of a series of sensors that can control vacuum and speed within the transport pipes, accomplishing a closed loop system able to change a centralized plant in automatic speed control in feeding systems. KruiseKontrol intervenes also in suction cycles, able to reduce speed extremes generated at the beginning and during pipe clean-ing phases.
KruiseKontrol is able to intervene drastically on the transportation of plas-tic material in granule form, managing every second of the transportation along the entire process path. This ensures management and optimization of the 13 possible variables within the vacuum transport. Consequently, it will be possible to create a profile for every material and every machine, totally automatic. The challenge to be accepted was surely this: a variable transportation. Considerable efforts have been made to simplifying the management of a system of such complexity. KruiseKontrol is equipped with an eight-inch colour monitor with touch screen interface. The layout of the ONE WIRE feeding system will appear on the screen. When touching the image of a receiver, a display with only two parameters to be set ap-pears.
When touching “material”, a list of 40 different materials appears, listed by initials: i.e. ABS, PVC, PS, PA, etc. It will suffice to choose the required material, so that the dedicated profile with the relevant default parame-ters can be set. In addition to the 40 profiles already available, another 40 customized materials can be set. The second parameter is “machine num-ber”. With these two parameters, the system is ready to express its plus, contributing to create value added and reduction of production wastes. Each machine can be coupled to a different material, with different fea-tures and KruiseKontrol manages every single cycle automatically, every single transport, every single material, equally automatically.
KruiseKontrol makes available data for every single transport cycle. Be-sides, it provides a dynamic real speed track for every kind of material, also alarm archive options, planned maintenance and on-line help. Dedi-cated system security and total control of the transport process is guaran-teed by a three level password facility. KruiseKontrol can be connected to the MOWIS supervising system; it is also an OMS&P project.
