Worms / Troisdorf, July 2016 | Reifenhäuser Blown Film hosted an Open House in Troisdorf during the DRUPA trade show held in Düsseldorf. A multitude of customers from around the world attended the event to learn about new opportunities in the application of film extrusion technologies.
What made the Reifenhäuser Open House event so appealing were the lines in operation: Three state-of-the-art blown film lines could be viewed running in production. A special highlight was the EVOLUTION Ultra Flat technology which has become a convincing selling point. Eugen Friedel, Senior Sales Manager at Reifenhäuser Blown Film comments: "Film flatness imperfections occurring in the production of packaging films are inherent in blown film processes. Especially in the conversion of these films they can cause serious problems. With EVOLUTION Ultra Flat featuring minimum stretching of the film via heating-cooling rolls it is possible to produce a web perfectly flat for subsequent winding and conversion." The enhanced efficiency covers the entire value chain. "All steps in the production of packaging film, such as lamination, printing, re-forming and sealing, clearly benefit from the optimized web flatness," says Eugen Friedel explaining the advantages of Ultra Flat. Arguments that could convince, as three lines were sold with Ultra Flat during the Open House.
Beside the Ultra Flat technology further highlights were presented by Reifenhäuser Blown Film on their running blown film lines:
- 11-layer blown film line producing an outer layer from polyamide: Here an asymmetric high-barrier structure was so skillfully chosen that the curling effect of the film was prevented without using a water bath (critical for hygienic production conditions). Curling of the film edges is caused by the different speeds at which raw materials cool down and by the individual crystallization points (for example PE vs. PA, PET). That impedes a smooth conversion of the film. Excellent film properties needed for conversion, lamination and printing were also ensured by the EVOLUTION Ultra Flat haul-off used on this line. Thanks to minimized stretching via heating-cooling rolls, a web of perfect flatness was achieved with this technology.
- 3-layer line producing FFS bags (Form, Fill & Seal) from an LLD-PE rich based material structure regarded as difficult. Operated with a 175mm die, the line easily achieved a consistent record-breaking output of 450kg per hour.
- 5-layer line designed for high output producing high-efficiency lamination film - over 800kg/h were achieved using a 325mm die. Here as well, the advantages of the EVOLUTION Ultra Flat technology were demonstrated.
Eugen Friedel is excited about the excellent feedback from the Open House: "Especially our customers from India and Asia were thrilled about the line configurations we were presenting. Our lines will enable them to cater to increasing market needs for highly efficient barrier blown films in their countries“.
