This machine replaces the current Engel Victory and E-Victory 150 machines.
The Engel Victory 160 features a redesigned clamping cylinder, mould-fixing platen and C frame.
The use of the Flex-Links with force dividers allows for unbeatable clamping-unit quality.
They reduce the deflection of the moving mould-fixing platen to a minimum and ensure smoothly distributed force transmission to the mould across the whole mould-mounting surface.
All injection units are safeguarded by safety fences and safety gates.
Hydraulic injection units of size 750 are alternatively available as encapsulated types, without additional safety guarding.
The selection of electrical injection units has now been extended to include the 940 injection unit.
The Engel Victory 160's new ecodrive hydraulic drive system is now also available.
The new system has a fixed displacement pump and servomotor instead of the standard hydraulics and asynchronous motor used previously.
This means the machine's speed is directly linked to the drive speed.
The new servohydraulic ecodrive keeps the speed down.
In other words, the drive is only active during movements, with energy consumption close to zero when the machine is idle.
This makes it possible to reduce energy consumption by 70 per cent.
Tooling University
Friday, July 16, 2010
Injection Moulder Provides 1600kN Clamping Force
Telsonic Outlines Key to Ultrasonic Welding
Telsonic's Martin Frost discusses how thinking ahead can assist designers and integrators of ultrasonic welding to avoid pitfalls and make the most of the flexible and robust joining technology.
Reducing the time required to get a product to market is often a key element of today's manufacturing strategies.
Achieving these objectives involves taking a 'right first time' approach to minimise the lengthy development stages that can often be associated with a new product.
The increasing use of SLA and 3D printed models is a tremendous aid to visualising the shape, size, sections and features of the finished component, giving designers and production engineers a real insight into the production and performance criteria associated with the part.
Reducing the design and development time, however, means that the product designers have to make carefully considered and informed design inputs more quickly.
The most effective way of ensuring that the ultrasonic welding process will be consistent and predictable is wherever possible to design for assembly.
Focus should be made on the polymers that will be used along with preparation in part geometry and tolerances at the design stage.
This will simplify and enhance the reliability of the subsequent assembly and welding process.
Considering the potential requirement for specific weld features on the part is essential at the outset of the design process, as this in turn will have an impact on the component and the mould tool design.
These are important decisions, which will ultimately have an influence on the production process and part functionality and that should be based on sound advice sought through collaboration with the manufacturer of the ultrasonic technology.
Ultrasonic welding depends upon the response of the materials being joined.
Materials such as polystyrene, ABS and polycarbonate all respond well to ultrasonic energy.
Other materials, however, including polyethylene and tougher grades of nylon, are more difficult to weld with ultrasonics.
Reinforced materials, such as those with fillers, can have a positive or negative impact on the ultrasonic welding process dependant on the fill type and quantity.
The best results will always be obtained when the components to be welded are produced from the same material.
Dissimilar materials can be joined using ultrasonics providing they are in the same chemically compatible family and have similar melting points.
It is also possible to weld completely dissimilar materials using a joint design that will allow one material to be reformed and encapsulate the other mechanically, thus securing it in place.
Next to the selection of materials, part design and, in particular, joint design hold the key to creating a robust and repeatable weld.
Ultrasonic weld specialists and the internet offer plenty of valuable ground-rule information on joint designs - even Telsonic has its own design recommendation manual.
This information should be viewed as a guide only, as complex or delicate components require a sensitive approach to welding.
As an example, in these instances it is important to establish that the parts to be welded are actually capable of holding up to the forces applied by the process, however small.
Other dilemmas faced by the designer include ensuring that a joint can be achieved reliably - at speed and with a sufficiently wide process window.
Too narrow a process window will result in repeated machine setting and possibly higher reject rates.
The proposed production method - manual or automated - can also have an influence on both the product design and the welding process.
A further consideration may be the presence of other components, especially delicate parts or electronics that may be part of the assembly.
At this level it is important to have more than just a basic appreciation of the ultrasonic welding process.
Seeking advice from the supplier will ensure that the solution is based upon extensive experience of how best to apply the technology to the task in hand.
Examples where this type of collaboration has been successful include the creation of joint designs and part preparation where the ultrasonic energy is focused into the joint efficiently and the weld completed swiftly, without dissipation to other areas of the component or even a change in weld frequency.
These principles not only result in a successful weld but eliminate the risk of damage to any internal components.
Where there is to be more than one weld on a given part, both the component and joint design should be reviewed to ensure that energy from multiple weld sequences does not have an adverse effect on any of the previous weld points.
Good joint design in delicate components should be mindful of the amount of energy required to achieve the weld.
A typical example of the approach would be the use of an 'energy director' joint, as opposed to a 'shear joint'.
This design, when combined with application experience, still achieves both strength and a hermetic seal, but with a reduction in the energy required to make the weld of up to 40 per cent.
The use of location features, often surrounding the weld joint, make pre-welding assembly more robust by ensuring that the individual parts are positioned repeatably every time, with the added benefit of assisting the welding process.
The importance of dimensional tolerances and component stability must not be overlooked if the welding process is to remain consistent during production.
Parts can vary due to inconsistent moulding conditions or poor handling and storage post moulding, while parts are cooling.
Any resultant inconsistencies within the shape and size of the individual parts due to these factors or inappropriate component tolerances, will be reflected in the results achieved from the welding process.
With the design complete and component parts moulded, the physical parts should then be reviewed carefully at QC level to scrutinise the ultrasonic weld preparation features for size and accuracy.
The joint itself should be viewed and respected as a precise collapse of polymer melt, sized and positioned to provide a predictable and process controllable way to achieve fuse strength and not just a token sacrificial bead of plastic.
Having defined materials, joint design, tolerances and moulded a part fit for sustainable and quality production, it is essential to ensure that the welding process is not compromised by the use of inappropriate or underpowered equipment.
Attempting to use equipment that is incapable of generating the required amount of ultrasonic power or lacking the control functionality required for the task in hand, will undoubtedly result in continuous adjustments to pressure and amplitude, and ultimately guesswork in trying to make the application 'fit' the processing capabilities of the machine.
This is especially important for high-volume precision components and those used in medical devices or other safety-critical applications, where it is essential to produce parts to a consistent specification and quality.
In these instances it is essential to invest in a supplier specialist with design capability, laboratory development facilities, a broad range of machines and modules, together with the expertise to develop a robust production solution in partnership with the design house, integrator and manufacturer.
Tooling University
Purging Compound Reduces Extrusion Downtime
Package film extrusion plants practising frequent material changeovers, have been successful in using a chemical purging compound to improve quality and reduce downtime.
Package film extrusion plants have been successful in using SuperNova chemical purging compound from Novachem to improve quality and reduce downtime.
One operator found that frequent material changeovers, particularly when using Eval or Surlyn, can yield gels and specks in production output - even after running scrap for two or three hours, gels and speck were apparent.
This led to frequent unscheduled die teardowns - at least once a month - and hours of lost production time.
The Application Specialists at Novachem were able to create custom purging processes to help remove leftover production material that can degrade the machinery during transitions and startup.
After analyzing the plant's needs, a site-specific regimen of SuperNova chemical purging compound was recommended.
This usually involves use of the compound before every material transition, and following each teardown and cleaning.
After using a tailor-engineered application of SuperNova chemical purging compound as recommended by the application specialists at Novachem, changeovers yielded no more gels and little or no specking after shutdowns.
Based on the typical success of custom purging processes created by Novachem's application experts, plant productivity and worker efficiency have improved dramatically.
Some plants have saved up to 12h/month on their changeovers, and have been able to avoid up to three shifts a month on teardowns.
As a bonus, there is little or no product waste due to gels or specks.
Tooling University
Double-Strand Core Extrusion Reduces Costs
In extruding plastics profiles, double-strand extrusion produces two profiles simultaneously, reducing the capital investment and the required floor space for the extrusion line.
In profile manufacture, coextrusion can cut costs substantially, said KraussMaffei.
For example, producing a profile with a regrind core covered with virgin material in all visible areas sharply reduces material costs.
Schuco International has recently invested in a profile system using core extrusion technology.
Schuco International is a global player, developing and marketing complete systems using plastics, aluminium and steel.
One current project combines double-strand extrusion with core technology.
Double-strand extrusion produces two profiles simultaneously.
This reduces both the capital investment and the required floorspace for the extrusion line.
Schuco embarked on a cooperative project with Greiner Extrusion and KraussMaffei Berstorff to develop a double-strand extrusion system for producing its five-chamber main window profiles.
The big challenges were to design the die, to split up and manage the melt streams, and develop a cost-effective extruder concept.
The combined know-how of the three partners made it possible to meet these challenges in a remarkably short time.
* Pressure-optimized channel system - the material ratios in Schuco's main window profiles are around 60% virgin PVC and 40% regrind.
The new system uses two extruders, both of which supply both strands.
The melt streams are split via a pressure-optimized channel system so that they reach the dies in the required pattern.
The two extruders need to be positioned very close together in order to feed the channel system effectively.
The concept uses two separate KMD 90-36/P profile extruders from KraussMaffei Berstorff, each on its own base frame.
The main control cabinets are positioned at a distance from the extrusion line.
Two extra compact control units, positioned close to the extruder output zone, house the die control circuits and the operator panels.
Both operator panels (one for each extruder) are on the operator side.
Each extruder can be operated separately, or the two extruders can be operated in synchrony.
This gives Schuco maximum flexibility to respond to future requirements.
* About KraussMaffei - KraussMaffei is the only supplier worldwide of the three key machine technologies for the plastics and rubber compounding and processing industries.
The KraussMaffei brand stands for comprehensive solutions for injection and reaction moulding, while the KraussMaffei Berstorff brand covers the whole spectrum of extrusion systems, including complete extrusion lines.
KraussMaffei has a unique wealth of know-how across the whole range of processing methods.
As a technology partner, it links this know-how with innovative engineering to deliver application-specific and integrated solutions.
KraussMaffei operates a network of 70 subsidiaries and sales agencies close to customers worldwide.
Tooling University
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Brain Structure
Scientists have found that the size of different parts of people’s brains correspond to their personalities. For example, conscientious people tend to have a bigger lateral prefrontal cortex, a brain region involved in planning and controlling actions.
Psychologists commonly break down all personality traits into five factors: conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness/intellect. Researchers Colin DeYoung at the University of Minnesota and colleagues wanted to know if these factors correlated with the size of structures in the brain.
The scientists gave 116 volunteers a questionnaire to describe their personality, then gave them a brain imaging test that measured the relative size of different parts of the brain. Several links were found between the size of certain brain regions and personality. The research appears in the journal Psychological Science.
For example, “everybody, I think, has a common sense of what extroversion is – someone who is talkative, outgoing, brash,” said DeYoung. “They get more pleasure out of things like social interaction, amusement parks, or really just about anything, and they’re also more motivated to seek reward, which is part of why they’re more assertive.” That quest for reward is thought to be a leading factor in extroversion.
Earlier studies had found parts of the brain that are active in considering rewards. So DeYoung and his colleagues reasoned that those regions should be bigger in extroverts. Indeed, they found that one of those regions, the medial orbitofrontal cortex – just above and behind the eyes – was significantly larger in very extroverted study subjects.
The study found similar associations for conscientiousness, which is associated with planning; neuroticism, a tendency to experience negative emotions that is associated with sensitivity to threat and punishment; and agreeableness, which relates to parts of the brain that allow us to understand each other’s emotions, intentions, and mental states. Only openness/intellect didn’t associate clearly with any of the predicted brain structures, the researchers found.
“This starts to indicate that we can actually find the biological systems that are responsible for these patterns of complex behavior and experience that make people individuals,” said DeYoung. He points out, though, that this doesn’t mean your personality is fixed from birth; the brain grows and changes as it grows. Experiences change the brain as it develops, and those changes in the brain can change personality.
World Science
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Transformations of Energy
One form of energy can often be readily transformed into another with the help of a device- for instance, a battery, from chemical energy to electric energy; a dam: gravitational potential energy to kinetic energy of moving water (and the blades of a turbine) and ultimately to electric energy through an electric generator. Similarly, in the case of a chemical explosion, chemical potential energy is transformed to kinetic energy and thermal energy in a very short time. Yet another example is that of a pendulum. At its highest points the kinetic energy is zero and the gravitational potential energy is at maximum. At its lowest point the kinetic energy is at maximum and is equal to the decrease of potential energy. If one (unrealistically) assumes that there is no friction, the conversion of energy between these processes is perfect, and the pendulum will continue swinging forever
Energy gives rise to weight and is equivalent to matter and vice versa. The formula E = mc², derived by Albert Einstein (1905) quantifies the relationship between mass and rest energy within the concept of special relativity. In different theoretical frameworks, similar formulas were derived by J. J. Thomson (1881), Henri Poincaré (1900), Friedrich Hasenöhrl (1904) and others (see Mass-energy equivalence#History for further information). Since c2 is extremely large relative to ordinary human scales, the conversion of ordinary amount of mass (say, 1 kg) to other forms of energy can liberate tremendous amounts of energy (~9x1016 joules), as can be seen in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Conversely, the mass equivalent of a unit of energy is minuscule, which is why a loss of energy from most systems is difficult to measure by weight, unless the energy loss is very large. Examples of energy transformation into matter (particles) are found in high energy nuclear physics.
In nature, transformations of energy can be fundamentally classed into two kinds: those that are thermodynamically reversible, and those that are thermodynamically irreversible. A reversible process in thermodynamics is one in which no energy is dissipated (spread) into empty energy states available in a volume, from which it cannot be recovered into more concentrated forms (fewer quantum states), without degradation of even more energy. A reversible process is one in which this sort of dissipation does not happen. For example, conversion of energy from one type of potential field to another, is reversible, as in the pendulum system described above. In processes where heat is generated, quantum states of lower energy, present as possible exitations in fields between atoms, act as a reservoir for part of the energy, from which it cannot be recovered, in order to be converted with 100% efficiency into other forms of energy. In this case, the energy must partly stay as heat, and cannot be completely recovered as usable energy, except at the price of an increase in some other kind of heat-like increase in disorder in quantum states, in the universe (such as an expansion of matter, or a randomization in a crystal).
As the universe evolves in time, more and more of its energy becomes trapped in irreversible states (i.e., as heat or other kinds of increases in disorder). This has been referred to as the inevitable thermodynamic heat death of the universe. In this heat death the energy of the universe does not change, but the fraction of energy which is available to do produce work through a heat engine, or be transformed to other usable forms of energy (through the use of generators attached to heat engines), grows less and less
Wiki
Depleted Uranium
Depleted uranium (DU) is uranium primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238 (U-238). Natural uranium is about 99.27 percent U-238, 0.72 percent U-235, and 0.0055 percent U-234. U-235 is used for fission in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Uranium is enriched in U-235 by separating the isotopes by mass. The byproduct of enrichment, called depleted uranium or DU, contains less than one third as much U-235 and U-234 as natural uranium. The external radiation dose from DU is about 60 percent of that from the same mass of natural uranium.
DU is also found in reprocessed spent nuclear reactor fuel, but that kind can be distinguished from DU produced as a byproduct of uranium enrichment by the presence of U-236.[3] In the past, DU has been called Q-metal, depletalloy, and D-38.
DU is useful because of its very high density of 19.1 g/cm3. Civilian uses include counterweights in aircraft, radiation shielding in medical radiation therapy and industrial radiography equipment, and containers used to transport radioactive materials. Military uses include defensive armor plating and armor-piercing projectiles.
The use of DU in munitions is controversial because of questions about potential long-term health effects.[4][5] Normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure, because in addition to being weakly radioactive, uranium is a toxic metal.[6] It is weakly radioactive and remains so because of its long physical half-life (4.468 billion years for uranium-238), but has a considerably shorter biological half-life. The aerosol produced during impact and combustion of depleted uranium munitions can potentially contaminate wide areas around the impact sites or can be inhaled by civilians and military personnel.[7] During a three week period of conflict in 2003 in Iraq, 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes of DU munitions were used, mostly in cities.[8]
The actual acute and chronic toxicity of DU is also a point of medical controversy. Multiple studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure.[4] A 2005 epidemiology review concluded: "In aggregate the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU."[9] The World Health Organization states that no consistent risk of reproductive, developmental, or carcinogenic effects have been reported in humans.[10][11] However, the objectivity of this report has been called into question.
Wiki
