ADVANTAGES AND KEY FEATURES OF ARSENAL FILM BLOWING EXTRUDERS
International Association “ARSENAL ENGINEERING” specializes in design, development and manufacture of state-of-the-art coex film blowing machines to produce film with absolute gauge variation within 4 per cent without automatic profile control. We use latest German know-how which makes film-blowing lines capable to process HD, LD, LL polyethilene, PP and their mistures in any proportion.
Our machines were developed in XXIst century. This makes the difference:
1. Best plasticization and homogenization of polymer due to use of the new screws*
2. Best gauge tolerance and changeover time due high pressure spiral die, individually retailed to your needs
3. 30 per cent lower electric power consumption due to use of revolutionary helical grooved feeding zone
4. PLC controls which reduce mistakes, startup and transition time
5. Best reliability due to use of proven components, high grade materials and precision machining
6. The most complete engineering and technological support available on the market
7. Hot line and continuous support
"Arsenal A3m" is the leading-technology 3-layer film-blowing co-extruder, which is capable to produce over 30 various types of film in the most economic way, such as:
general packaging
heat-shrinkable films
stretch films
twist effect film
films for milk and frozen food packaging
foamed films
and other applications, covering up to 90% of possible polymer film usage.
The films may be produced with modern materials, such as LDPE, LLDPE, mLDPE, MDPE, bimodal PE, HDPE, PP, EVA, etc.
Extrusion line «Arsenal 1600–60» is the downstream monolayer version of A3m machine with the same type of extrusion press, «fine comb» extrusion die and PLC.
«Arsenal 1600–60» – multi purpose line and is aimed to make various precise one layer films of high quality: shrinkable, hotbed film, film for frozen food, composite film and other types.
«Arsenal 1600–75» – is deep modification of «Arsenal 1600–60» equipped with high performance 75 mm extrusion press and IBC. An optional deep gusseting unit allows to produce shrinkable folded film with effective width up to 2300 mm.
Multi-purpose blown film inflation machine "Arsenal 1400" equipped for PE film. The film could be used for bag producing and soft roofing lamination.
High efficiency is provided by modern extruder, higher tower and wide rollers. The width of the rollers 1400 mm was chosen according the Russian market demand. According to the design of "Arsenal 1400" reduces the overhead expenses and minimizes the final film cost.
Features :
High efficiency of equipment, reliability and stable work.
Equipped with modern control systems and spare parts of leading world companies
Minimal deviations in film thickness which do not exceed ±5%.
Smooth film rollers and excellent winding
High durability of produced film is getting by special technologies of melting
* Important notes for specialists in extrusion
1. The type of screw we use was developed and patented by the well-known Swiss company Mailifer in 1961 by and remains the best solution in the industry since then. The feeding and mixing elements of the screw are merged together within two spirals with different pitch. This design arranges a long spiral barrier, which provides mixing of polymer with the least possible pressure drop. The screw is also equipped with Gregory-Barr barrier element, which actually resembles the same design, as screw, but since the function is limited to homogenization of already properly mixed melt, the length of the element is considerably shorter. One last mixer breaks the threads of the melt in the final part of the screw. The screw has the longest L/D ratio in film extrusion industry, 1:34. The combination of this measures provides the best melt-feed-mix function of the screw, that allows to combine polymers with extended range of melt indexes and molecular mass distribution at wide range of feeding capacities. So, for instance, our customers use to mix HDPE with LDPE which is normally not possible with other screws.
2. The behavior of polymer melt greatly depends on shear and temperature. The dependence is described by the Power Low, which may be considered as main law in extrusion. According to the law viscosity of different polymers may be equal at low shear but may vary 3 times at high shear. But for other combination of polymers the dependence could be other way round! So sometimes the same type of polymer behaves itself as stiff as toothpaste, sometimes as liquid as water. But the complexity of polymer nature is not limited to the above. Some polymers in specific conditions do not move in narrow passages, for instance. Polymers may burn or clog on surfaces řf flow speeds exceed normal limits, etc. All the above complicate design of hot part, especially, extrusion dies. Some dies may be good for one type of polymer but do not do with other. The modern methods of computer simulation allow design of much better and universal extrusion dies. The breakthrough in the numerical experimenting happened only recently with appearance of powerful computers, but even now it takes many hours of work of the best specialists.
3. The heart of the film making machine is an extrusion press, which provides melting, homogenization and pressure feeding of polymer. The feeding itself is provided by so-called "polymer nut", created within feeding zone. Smooth bore feeding zones may generate only relatively low pressures (100 to 200 Bars), so they are replaced by grooved feeding zones, providing higher output and pressures at cost of higher electricity consumption and sometimes insufficient homogenization. High pressure, in turn, allows use of spiral Mandrel dies with better distribution of tolerances. This type of "fine comb" spiral dies require higher input pressures of 300 to 500 Bars, provided only by grooved extruders.
Another very important feature of grooved feeding zone is absence of slip-skid of the polymer nut and absence of consequent pulsations. HGFZ herein all the advantages of straight grooves but increase homogenization to the needed level. This is obtained by spiral geometry of the feeding grooves, that allows increase of RPM of screw by 40% with proportional increase of mixing effect. Power consumption of HGFZ extruders is also lower by 15% compared to straight grooved ones.
4. Modern PLC provide many functions which were not available 10-15 years ago. The main advantage though is not PLC itself, but the possibility to use most intelligent algorithms of control, combine more sensors and actuators within adaptive and integral system with simple and human friendly interface. It make sense to dig deeply in advantages of control systems provided by different manufacturers of extrusion machines.
5. In the modern globalized economy every company may use the best components at best cost for the customer. Most of the vendors provide choice of options today, so it is advised that the customer participate in the process as much as possible. This will bring you product at needed level of reliability and function at most competitive cost. On the other hand reliability is not only limited to reliability of components, so engineering and serviceability level of manufacturer should be also noted.
6. Manufacturing of modern precise films almost entirely depends on technology. The documentation, training and technological support is if not more important as the quality of the machine itself.
7. Does your vendor have on-line support 24 hours 365 days a year? This may be key question if you complete urgent and complicated order and something goes wrong.
