ARBURG Ltd, along with Günther UK, Waldorf Technik and Contura organised a technical seminar in the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. The venue was chosen to provide both a focal point for the technical papers from each company and as a venue of interest to all attending delegates. The collective objective behind the event was to hold a seminar in Ireland to offer new development’s and to underline support for the Irish plastics industry.

ARBURG started proceedings with Colin Tirel, Managing Director of ARBURG Ltd welcoming all the delegates and setting the scene for the day. This was followed by Simon Wrighton Sales Manager for ARBURG Ltd who presented an overview of the ARBURG ALLDRIVE all electric machine technology versus hydraulic technology. The presentation aimed to offer an overview as to rationale on how a company selects the right technology for their specific requirements. The conclusion was that whilst  electric machine technology offers advantages, is not always necessarily the optimum technology for a given task as a number of case studies proved.
The presentation concluded with a detailed overview of ‘cleanroom’ concept technology available from ARBURG.

Reiner Heendeniya, Managing Director of Günther UK Ltd, explained some of the advances made in hot runner technology in recent years. He explained how the use of a patented titanium shaft with the Günther nozzles greatly reduces the amount of heat transfer from hot runner to the mould tool and offers improved sealing in the gate area.
Another topic of interest proved to be the different options available for the actuation of valve gates of which Günther offer four – single nozzle, single cylinder, lifting plate and sliding plate. Allied to the powder metal guide insert Reiner Heendeniya stated that there were now many new solutions to valve gating that were not previously available including pitch centres from only 9mm.

Andy Sargisson, Export Sales Director for export markets for Waldorf Technik GmbH provided an overview on the correct way to approach a new project in the medical field requiring automation: From concept through to FMEA and Validation he demonstrated how they shared their specialist ‘know how’.
He went on to explain how automation can be the ideal way to bring security to a company by reducing costs and adding value to the moulding process, and by selecting the right partner the theory can be turned into reality.

Reiner Westhoff Project Manager for Contura MTC GmbH offered an overview of “basic problems to building a good mould temperature control”
He gave a presentation underlining the basic problems of building a good mould temperature control in a mould and the bad thermal heat conductivity of the mould steel. Typical heat conductivity of mould steel is between 15 and 25 W/mK.In comparison to that pure copper has a heat conductivity of 390 W/mK.
 
Bad heat conductivity of mould steel types leads to significant hot spots in a mould when conventional drilling techniques are used. Normally straight drilling techniques are not able to follow complex part shapes. The solution offered to overcome the bad heat conductivity of mould steel is to have a waterline layout that follows the part shape showing a tight channel net at the same time.
 
He then went on to offer three solutions; ‘bonding techniques’, ‘cope heat transfer pins’ and ‘direct laser forming’. He concluded that neither was a ‘cure all’ for all problems but that Contura employ one or all of these techniques to overcome an inherent tooling problem(s).