Plastic Extrusion Manufacturer: A Basic Guide on Plastic Extrusion

Being a plastic extrusion manufacturer, we often come across questions like what is plastic extrusion? Is it useful? Are there any subcategories? We understand the concept might be alien for people outside the industry.

After all, it does involve some technicality. Thus, making it off-limits for people who do not have a taste for it. Nonetheless, having general knowledge is never bad. So, today, in our blog post we are going to focus on the basics of plastic extrusion.

By the end of the blog, you would be familiar with its basic idea, types as well as its advantages. So, without any further delay, we should get started!

Introduction to Plastic Extrusion

For starters, you need to know what plastic extrusion is. In the technical world, people define this concept as the transformation of solid plastic mass into usable products. The manufacturer would take the plastic mass and turn it into the desired shape.

It is possible to either use these shapes to create additional products, or you can use them as end-products. It all depends upon your requirement. We hope, you now get the basic idea regarding plastic extrusion.

Now, let's dig a little deeper.

プラスチック押出成形を組み込んだプロセスを製造する3つの主要なプラスチック部品があります。 これらのプロセスには、ブロー成形、射出成形、および押出成形が含まれます。 各プロセスは重要であり、独自の方法で異なります。

押し出し

それは継続的なプロセスです。 他のプロセスに欠けている何か。 押し出しでは、ペレット、固体プラスチックの塊、または粉末を連続的に溶融した形に変換します。 また、ダイを使用して、溶けた形を形に押し込みます。

形状は、プラスチックに最終的に実現させたい形状です。 しかし、それは最後の部分ではありません。 この形状は、それぞれの結果を達成するために他の複数のプロセスを経ます。 これらの操作には、パイプ、プロファイル、キャストフィルム、ブロー、シート、ペレット化などがあります。

以下に、これらのプロセスからの出力を示します。

You can turn plastic sheets into either food storage containers or drinking cups.

Plastic pipes that help in delivering water safely to your phone. You do not have to worry about lead contamination.  In addition, these pipes do not clad the sides of your house, giving it a less pleasing overview.

For grocery bags, you would be using films. They not only increase the shelf life of the product but at the same time protect it from any sort of harmful contamination.

Every sub-process is different and one of a kind. It requires different downstream equipment, post extrusion, or dies in order to manufacturer the respective product. No matter, what type of process you use, all sub-processes do have one common component, the extruder.

The job of an Extruder

食品ストックまたは固体プラスチック塊を溶融形態に変える押出機の主な仕事。 この目的のために、プラスチック押出メーカーは2つの異なる押出技術に依存する傾向があります。 二軸スクリュー技術または一軸スクリュー技術のいずれかを使用できます。

シングルスクリューテクノロジー

Plastic extruding manufacturersは、二軸スクリューよりも一軸スクリュー技術を好みます。 これは業界で最も一般的です。 この技術の素晴らしいところは、幅広い種類のポリマーに適用できることです。

さらに、この技術はほとんどすべての一般的な押出プロセスに適用できます。

二軸押出機技術

On the other hand, we have the twin-screw extruder technology. This is a more sophisticated form of technology. The manufacturers further break down the technology into two parts, the co-rotating, and the counter-rotating technologies.

With the counter-rotating extruder incorporate 2 screws. These screws rotate in opposite direction to each other and they intermesh as well. The co-rotating twin screws also use 2 screws. However, these screws rotate in the same direction and they intermesh as well.

Regardless of the type of technology you use, single or twin, their main objective is the same. They want to turn a solid mass plastic into a melt. Both of these technologies use slightly different mechanisms to serve the same purpose.

Note: The beginning of the intrusion process is the transformation process. Therefore, you need to be extremely careful as it does have a great impact on the entire process.

To highlight its importance, manufacturers call extruder as the heat of the extrusion process. Likewise, they label the extruder screw as the heat of the extruder. After all, the lack of extruder screw performance would have an adverse impact on the entire extrusion process.

The screw needs to perform at the optimal level in order for the extrusion to become a great success.

Plastic Extrusion Manufacturer Categories Extrusion as below

Film/Sheet Extrusion

This particular extrusion process uses a flat die to extrude the molten plastic material. In order to find the sheet or the film’s thickness, the process uses cooling rolls. These rolls are also helpful for determining the texture of the material’s surface.

It is possible to attain the sheet thickness between 0.2 to 15 mm. However, the thickness does depend upon your product or component requirement. It is possible to make a thin flat film or sheet. For effective results, plastic extrusion manufacturer recommends using polystyrene plastic as raw material.

Blown Film Extrusion

This process also uses a die, however, instead of flat the die is like a vertical cylinder. It also comes with a circular profile. A pair of nip rollers would pull the molten plastic from the die in an upward direction. To inflate the tubes, you would be using compressed air.

Moreover, there is an air ring installed around the die. The reason for the air-ring is to cool down the film as it moves upwards. To force the compressed air into the center of a circular profile, you will notice an air inlet.

This air inlet helps in creating a bubble. It is possible to increase the cross-section around two to three times the die diameter. To collapse the bubbles, you would be needing the collapsing plate. Later, the lay-flat comes into action for flatting the bubbles into double layer films.

Over Jacketing Extrusion

Another name for over jacketing extrusion is the wire coating process. From the center of the die, you will be pulling a bare wire. For coating over the wire, you can either use the jacketing or pressure tooling.

These two processes are different; however, they serve the same purpose. Nonetheless, we do recommend jacketing tooling if you require adhesion or intimate contact between coating and wire. In case of pressure tooling, you would retract the wire into the die.

It would then come in contact with the molten plastic. Do remember, that there needs to be a high pressure while the wire is coming in contact with molten plastic. On the other hand, for jacketing tooling, the die comes first, and then the molten plastic would cover the wire after it tends to extend.

You would be feeding the bare wire using the die. It would not come in contact with the molten plastic until it is within the die. The major difference between these processes is that wire positioning with respect to the die.

Plastic Extrusion: Advantages

If there are two or more machines available to feed the single die, it is possible to have co-extrusion. This is highly effective if the product requires multiple layers of different materials.

With co-extrusion, you can add a top layer of high-end material to give the product an expensive look, while using low-cost material underneath to save the overall product cost.

It is a cheaper plastic manufacturing technique. It is possible to improve product durability, properties, fire resistance, static, etc. using different additives.

With plastic extrusion, it is possible to achieve complex shapes with different textures, thickness, colors, etc. You can have access to numerous different shapes and colors, all because of the state-of-the-art technology.

The process is highly effective for producing shapes continuously.