With a tendency of moving from hydraulic to electric, some companies have gone to hybrid hydaulic-electric, and others such as BEKUM and General Plastics have a new generation of fully electric blow molding machines. Advantages of these fully electric machines, are clean environment, especially important for food and medical applications, as well as energy savings and precision. Energy savings of up to 40% have been reported.

There were 3,130 exhibitors at the K2007 compared to 2,904 at the K2004. Of these, 1,138 were from Germany. The remaining 1,992 came from:

464 from Italy
154 from China
144 from USA
132 from Taiwan
114 from UK
106 from France
103 from Switzerland
83 from Austria
688 from other countries

The percentage break-down is shown in the pie-chart below.

The 3,130 exhibits represented various industries:

1,897 machine manufacturers
611 materials suppliers
463 Processors
159 Service

Wandering around the K halls we found a slick bicycle frame made by the DKI Darmstadt, using their philosophy of achieving better final properties by process optimization. The frame itself is innovative; it was fabricated via filament winding and fibers are oriented in such a way that critical loading zones, which where calculated with BEM simulations, are taken into consideration. The frame also has embeded metal inserts for the rear suspension. Advantages over an aluminum frame are higher fiber stiffnesses at lower wall thickness. This translates into lower part weight, and a smoother ride experience since a composite frame absorbs most of the impact during the ride.

Metler-Toledo intruduced a combined TGA-DSC system for simultaneous analytical thermal analysis between ambient and 1600C. Additionally, a great advance is that the sample temperature sensor is directly attached to the weighting pan, and that you can now measure samples of up 1 gram.

For the first time SPE organized an extrusion seminar during the K-Show. Advances in Extrusion Technology was attended over 50 engineers from industry, from 16 different countries. Topics such as screw and die design, trends in single and twin screw extrusion, filtration technologies, gage measurements, new materials, co-extrusion, and others were presented by experts from all over the world.

Most cars use a metal cover to protect the steering linkage; however some luxury cars use composites. In general, switching to composite materials can be an expensive choice, but the engineers at LKT are making strides to shorten the price gap. The LKT has developed a compression-injection molding process in which they use a thermoplastic glassmat prepreg to manufacture the steering linkage cover. The process begins with the compression molding of the prepreg into the linkage geometry. Then molten polyamide is injected to form the support ribs of the structure. All this is done under one minute, which allows the composite cover to be more cost competitive with the conventional metal part. The LKT received the K-Show innovation award for this design.

Battenfeld Extrusionstechnik GmbH brings us high speed sheet extruders for thermoforming of PP, PS, PET, ABS, PE-LD and PLA. A 75 mm diameter extruder with a 34 L/D length, has a screw that rotates at 1500 RPM and consequently delivers 2.4 tons/h without excessive viscous heating. This is achieved using a combination of single screw extrusion with low pressure build-up, cooling and gear pumps. The output reflects negligible temperature rises from viscous heating.

Babyplast, a company specialized in injection molding machines for small parts, has brought to K2007 a set of small injection molding machines. To give an idea, the bayplast6/10Pthis hydraulic powered injection molding machine weights only 150 kg and has a maximum injection pressure of 2650 bar with clamping force of approximately 7 tons. This reduction of size allows for reduction in energy costs, low mold changing times and enhanced quality control.

Babyplast used to inject liquid silicone parts (Photo Alejandro Londoño)

ThermoFischer Scientific is unveiling one of their newest sensor technologies at the K2007. The 21Plus! is an X-Ray Transmission sensor, which can provide recognition, as well as accurate and stable high resolution weight and thickness measurements. The 21Plus! can be precisely tuned to measure material properties of several plastics, allowing it to be used on a line where multiple materials, such as coextrusion, are used. Measurements are based on the mass absorption properties of each material. The sensor can be used as a single unit or can communicate with up to 15 other units, which offers a more comprehensive on-line analysis. Currently these sensors are used mostly in coating, rubber and vinyl calendering, and coil coating applications.

(Photo Courtesy of ThermoFischer Scientific)

Clariant brought their line of natural based pigments to the K show this year. At the moment they have several colors, including green, yellow and red. Depending of the client, Renol can be found in masterbatches with carrier polymers based on renewable resources (BORR) such as PLA or basic plastics such as PP. These new pigments are targeted for environmentally friendly market applications.

(Photo Tim Osswald)