Heat & Cool molding technologies at K2013

Heat & Cool Technologies at K2013

1．About K2013

K-Show is the world largest trade fair of rubber and plastics which is held every 3 years in Dusseldorf in Germany. K2013 was held from October 16th to 23rd gathered about 220 thousand visitor from all over the world.
In this document, I will report about Heat & Cool technology at K2013.

2．About Heat & Cool Technology

Heat & Cool Technology is a common name of technology with mold heating and mold cooling in single molding cycle time. “Variotherm” is more common in Europe, however, variotherm is registered trade mark of Hofmann.
There are several kinds of heat & cool technologies; heating media / cooling media exchange, induction heating, electrical heating, hybrid etc.

3．Exhibition and demonstration

I could find more heat & cool technologies at K2013 than I found at K2010. Temperature controller producers, such as RocTool, SINGLE, gwk, Unibell and Wittmann Battenfeld demonstrated heat & cool.

RocTool is a company which develops molding technology using induction heating technology. In this show, RocTool displayed new induction unit which was downsized dramatically (Fig. 1). RocTool’s system was also used at ENGEL’s booth to demonstrate over molding of thermoplastic resin onto pre-trimmed long-carbon-fiber reinforced plastics (Fig. 2). Trexel Inc. displayed piano black molded sample using the combination of MuCell and induction heating (Fig. 3).

Fig. 1 Downsized Induction Unit displayed at RocTool’s booth

Fig. 2 Demonstration of over-molding at ENGEL’s booth

Fig. 3 Display at Trexel’s booth
Articles molded with the combination of MuCell and induction heating

gwk produces heat & cool unit using media exchange and electrical heating. In this show gwk demonstrated vario gt system which uses carbon dioxide gas for heating and liquid carbon dioxide for cooling (Fig. 4). By use carbon dioxide as the heating medium, the scale and the corrosion in the cannel can be prevented. Carbon dioxide is boost to 2.6 MPa by heating and compressing.
At KraussMaffei’s booth, the combination of MuCell and heat & cool molding was demonstrated using gwk’s temperature controller (Fig. 5).

Fig. 4．New heat & cool process demonstrated at gwk’s booth
Upper left: heating process, Upper right: cooling process, Lower: molded article

Fig. 5 Combination of MuCell and heat & cool technology demonstrated at KraussMaffei’s booth using gwk’s temperature controller
Upper: molded article, Lower: Human interface of gwk’s controller

　Unibell (Korea) demonstrated piano black molding using the combination of its emCo process and gas press at STILER Kunststoff Servics’s booth. “emCo” is a heat & cool process installing a heater in the cooling channel. In heating process, valves (see Fig. 6) at both upper stream and lower stream are closed to heat water in the channel.

Fig. 6 Demonstration at STIELER’s booth using the combination of gas press and emCo process
Upper left: mold with big valve, upper right: gas equipment, lower: molded article (piano black)

Wittmann Battenfeld demonstrated the combination of physical foaming using Nitrogen and heat & cool technology (BF-MOULD). Wittmann battenfeld also demonstrated molding piano black article using BF MOULD (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7 Molded article demonstrated at Wittmann Battenfeld’s booth
Upper: Article molded with the combination of Foaming and heat & cool technology
Lower: Piano black article molded using heat & cool technology (BF MOULD)

SINGLE demonstrated piano black molding using heat & cool technology (ATT: Alternating Temperature Technology) (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8 Piano black article demonstrated at SINGLE’s booth