ENGEL at K 2007 - A Comprehensive Product Portfolio forthe Automotive Industry
ENGEL opens injection moulding plasticsapplications to the automobile and automotive supplies industries with numerous newprocesses and combinations of processes. At the K 2007, ENGEL will be demonstrating the production of armrests using the Dolphin technology approach on an ENGEL duolarge-scale machine, along with a combination of ENGEL fluidmelt and ENGEL combimelttechnologies for manufacturing of multiple-branch media lines on a tiebar-lessENGEL victory machine.
Armauflage für den Automobilinnen-raum, hergestellt im Dolphin-Verfahren auf einer ENGEL duo 5550H/1800M/900 WP combi M
For many components in the vehicle shell, glazing, interior, power train, safety and control technology plastics are the only feasible materials, and injection moulding is the only possible approach. As a long-term development partner to the automobile industry ENGEL has a comprehensive program of injection moulding machines of all sizes, turnkey solutions comprising machine, moulds and automation, an experienced process technology development team, a tightly-meshed network of competent system integrators, many years of experience of the industry and a comprehensive service portfolio for maximum machine uptime.
New Applications for the Dolphin technology
The patented Dolphin process for the manufacturing of interior components with soft-touch surface through combined injection moulding and foaming has taken a further step towards serial deployment in the automobile industry: at K 2007 ENGEL will be demonstrating the Dolphin process as an alternative method of producing an armrest for a vehicle interior. ENGEL developed this project in cooperation with mould makers Georg Kaufmann AG, Busslingen/Switzerland, automotive supplier Johnson Controls GmbH, Burscheid/Germany plastics manufacturers BASF, Ludwigshafen/Germany and P-Group, Filderstadt/Germany.
The first step in the Dolphin process involves injection moulding the PBT-GF raw component with soft-touch surface. The soft-touch surface is completed by foaming with TPE-E using ENGEL's foammelt technique. Thanks to extremely granular process controls, the surface of the moulded part is completely closed, and of a perfect visual quality, although the physically gasified TPE mass foams in the mould creating a low density foam core with appealing usage properties.
The Dolphin technology will be demonstrated at K 2007 on a two-component ENGEL duo 5550H/1800M/900 WP combi M injection moulding machine (9,000 kN clamping force) with two horizontally juxtaposed injection units, a stack mould with rotating central platen, and platen parallelism controls integrated into the machine control unit. An ENGEL ERC 125/0-F will handle parts removal.
Combination of ENGEL fluidmelt and ENGEL combimelt for Multiple-Branch Media Lines
The combination of the ENGEL combimelt two-component injection moulding process with the ENGEL watermelt water injection technology creates two-layer, multiple-branch media lines, removing the danger of fibre stripping, and guaranteeing an excellent chemical resilience of the interior layer against cooling media.
In cooperation with Phoenix Automotive, a ContiTech AG company, ENGEL has developed a mould and a process to create a multiple-branch connecting line for use in the immediate vicinity of the engine. At K 2007 the project will be demonstrated on a tiebar-less, multiple component ENGEL victory 1050H/500W/150 combi injection moulding machine with two injection units for co-injection of the two plastic masses, and a third, integrated barrel-type injection system for water injection.
The exterior component with a weight of about 200 g comprises a fibreglass-reinforced polyamide by DuPont and an interior lining made of non-reinforced, modified polypropylene with a weight of approximately 100 g. Water injection technology is supplied by Maximator GmbH, Zorge/Germany. Parts removal is handled by a six-arm KR 16T robot by KUKA, Gersthofen/Germany.
Versatile Machines, Processes and Applications
Besides the dual-platen ENGEL duo machine series and the ENGEL victory tiebar-less machines, other ENGEL machines are used in the automotive industry, such as the fully electric ENGEL e-motion precision machine, the compact, fully electric ENGEL e-max and the ENGEL elast machines which specialise in elastomer processing.