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    Extrusion Principles

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    Krupakar Swamy
    The document discusses extrusion principles and components used in extrusion processes. It describes the main parts of an extruder as the hopper, barrel, screw, and die. It then provides details on screw and die designs for different plastic materials like PVC, PE, and PP. Specific screw types include barrier-type screws and mixing heads. The summary also mentions auxiliary equipment used after extrusion like quenching, stretching, stabilization, and winding systems for various plastic products.

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    Extrusion Principles

    Uploaded by

    Krupakar Swamy
    897 views11 pages
    The document discusses extrusion principles and components used in extrusion processes. It describes the main parts of an extruder as the hopper, barrel, screw, and die. It then provides details on screw and die designs for different plastic materials like PVC, PE, and PP. Specific screw types include barrier-type screws and mixing heads. The summary also mentions auxiliary equipment used after extrusion like quenching, stretching, stabilization, and winding systems for various plastic products.

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    The document discusses extrusion principles and components used in extrusion processes. It describes the main parts of an extruder as the hopper, barrel, screw, and die. It then provides details on screw and die designs for different plastic materials like PVC, PE, and PP. Specific screw types include barrier-type screws and mixing heads. The summary also mentions auxiliary equipment used after extrusion like quenching, stretching, stabilization, and winding systems for various plastic products.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    897 views11 pages

    Extrusion Principles

    Uploaded by

    Krupakar Swamy
    The document discusses extrusion principles and components used in extrusion processes. It describes the main parts of an extruder as the hopper, barrel, screw, and die. It then provides details on screw and die designs for different plastic materials like PVC, PE, and PP. Specific screw types include barrier-type screws and mixing heads. The summary also mentions auxiliary equipment used after extrusion like quenching, stretching, stabilization, and winding systems for various plastic products.

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    Product Application & Research Centre

    Mumbai

    1
    EXTRUSION PRINCIPLES

    Introduction

    Extrusion of thermoplastics is a process in which the material is melted by external heat /


    frictional heat and conveyed forward by a screw to the opening of the die, which gives
    the shape of the required product. Extrusion process is a continuous process by which
    many products like Films, Raffia tapes, Pipes, Sheets, Mono filaments, Fibre and
    Filaments can be manufactured.

    Extruders

    Extruders comprise of Hopper, Barrel/Screw and Dies. Figure 1 shows the components
    of a modern extruder

    Hopper

    All the extruders have an opening in the barrel wall at the driven end, through which the
    plastic granules enter the extruder. The hopper, a simple sheet - metal enclosure, is
    mounted above that opening and holds about an hour's capacity material. Hopper is
    provided with heating system, if the material has to be preheated before entering the
    extruder.
    Screw

    This is the heart of the extruder. Screw conveys the molten polymer to the opening of the
    die after properly homogenising the molten polymer. Figure 2 illustrates a typical screw
    configuration.

    There is considerable variation in the design of the screw for various materials, the most
    important variable being the depth of the channels. Despite much desire for universal
    screw, it is advisable to use a different design for each material to achieve the best results.
    So for optimum process of PVC, PP/PE following screw designs are advised.

    PVC Screws

    Since PVC is thermally unstable material, the screw (Fig 3) for processing this material
    has deeper channels, little or no metering, hard chrome plated, conical nose to prevent
    material hangup. Screw diameters vary from 30mm to 140mm, L/D ratios vary from 18
    to 22 for single screw and from 16 to 18 for twin screw extruders. Compression ratios
    are between 1.5 to 2.2:1 for twin screw / single screw extruders. Venting unit is present
    on the extruder to remove any volatiles.

    3
    PE/PP Screws

    PE/PP screws (Fig. 4) are more or less similar. The screws are designed to have shallow
    channels, sudden compression and long metering zones. Screw L/D varies from 24:1 to
    33:1 and the diameters from 20 mm to 250 mm and the compression ratios from 2.5 to
    3.1

    Barrier - Type Screws

    In some cases, even an optimally designed screw is not capable of completing the melting
    process. In such cases, the extrudate will contain unmelted plastic. This can be
    prevented by building a barrier or secondary flight in the channel (Fig. 5). The barrier
    flight is undercut and permits the passage of only fully molten plastic. The design of the
    barrier screw ensures complete melting of the polymer solids.

    There are different designs of barrier screws now available i.e. Maillefer / Uniroyal,
    Hartig, Barr I and II etc, each with its own characteristics.

    4
    Mixing Heads

    The metering section of a standard screw is not a good mixer. Smooth laminar flow
    patterns are established in the channel which do not mix dissimilar elements in the melt.
    Mixing devices are frequently installed in screws to distrupt these flow patterns and
    improve melt homogenisation.

    Pin mixers (Fig. 6) / Du Pont


    mixer are the examples of
    mixers which operates with low
    shears. They operate by
    interrupting and recombining the
    flow many times. They can be
    installed easily on existing
    screws to improve the
    performance.

    Other type of mixers are Maddock


    (Union Carbide) (Fig. 7) and Egan
    (Fig. 8). These mixers operate
    subjecting the melt to high shearing
    forces. Maddock screw operates like
    a barrier type of screw, it separates
    out any unmolten particles and
    homogenise the melt. Egan mixer
    also operates like a barrier screw,
    helical splines contribute to forward
    flow and helps in homogenising the
    melt.

    5
    Breaker Plate / Screen Pack

    Breaker plate with screen packs (Fig. 9) inserted are kept in the adapter which is a joint
    between the end of the extruder and the beginning of the die. This assembly has several
    functions

    • Arrest the rotational flow of the melt and convert into axial flow
    • Improves melt homogenity by splitting and recombining the flow
    • Improves mixing by increasing back pressure
    • Removes any contaminants and unmelt

    Screen packs are made up of series of screens of different mesh, with the coarest screen
    placed against the breaker plate to support the finer screens.

    Dies

    Various types of dies are used for processing PVC and PE/PP. They can be either
    Annular dies or Flat dies (T-Die or Coat hanger dies). Details of various dies are given in
    Anneure - 1

    Annular Dies

    PVC Dies

    PVC is thermally unstable, so it


    requires perfect flow channels. A
    spider mandrel (Fig. 10) die is used
    which helps in dividing the melt and
    fulfils the task of better
    homogenisation and allows the melt to
    flow smoothly.

    6
    PE/PP Dies

    For processing PE/PP a die with spirals are


    used as illustrated in Fig. 11. As the plastic
    flows from the entry point it spirals around
    the mandrel section of the die. From the
    Fig. 10, it is clear that the land depth
    between the spiral section and the wall
    increases as the material progresses through
    the die. As a result, the distribution around
    the die periphery is made uniform in order to
    control the gauge of the extruded tube.

    Flat Dies

    There are two types of Flat Dies. One is T-Type of flat die (Fig. 12) and the second one
    is Coat - Hanger type of die (Fig. 13). In coat hanger type of die, the design is of
    triangular preland section, which gives balanced pressure leading to uniform flow of the
    material. This minimizes the adjustment required to obtain uniform sheet thickness.

    7
    Auxiliary Equipment

    Once the product in the molten form (Films, Sheets, Pipes, Fiber setc., ) comes out of the
    die, it is cooled by chilled water/air/rollers etc., and wound/cut by various means. In
    some process like BOPP, Raffia tapes, Fibre etc. after cooling initially they are reheated
    by passing them through ovens and stretched to obtain required mechanical and optical
    properties. Various down stream equipment used in different process are given briefly in
    the following table.

    Product Process Quenching Stretching Stabilisatio Winding /


    n Cutting
    BOPP Tenter frame Chilled roll/ MDO/TDO Oven Rolls
    Chilled Hot air Oven
    water
    Double Chill water Nip rollers Air Rolls
    Bubble and inflating
    the bubble
    TQPP Inverted Chill water Nip rollers Air Rolls
    bubble and inflating
    the bubble
    Cast Flat film Chill rolls Rollers Air Rolls
    Raffia Flat film Water Goddet Oven Bobbins
    then cut into rollers and
    tapes Hot air oven
    / hot plate
    F&F Spinning Chill air Goddets and Air Bobbins
    hot plate /
    hot rollers
    Sheet Flat Rollers -- Air Rolls / Cut
    leng.
    Pipes -- Vacuum -- Water Cut leng.
    sizing and
    chill water

    8
    ANNEXURE 1

    VARIOUS DIES WITH DIFFERENT DIE GAPS FOR PP/PE/PVC APPLICATIONS

    SECTOR POLYMER APPLICATION TYPE OF DIE DIE GAP REMARKS


    (MM)
    Film Polypropylene BOPP - Flat Coat hanger 2 - 2.5
    - Blown Spiral mandrel 1.75 - 2 Double Bubble
    TQPP - Blown Spiral mandrel 1 - 1.5 Downward Extrusion
    Cast - Flat Coat hanger 0.8 - 1.2
    Polyethylene LLDPE - Blown Spiral mandrel 1.8 - 2.5
    - Cast Coat hanger 1.5 - 1.8
    LDPE - Blown Spiral mandrel 0.8 - 1
    HDPE - Blown Spiral mandrel 0.8 - 1
    PVC PVC - Blown Spider mandrel 0.8 - 1
    Raffia Polypropylene PP - Flat Coat hanger 0.6 - 0.7 Die widths can be adjusted
    with deckles
    Polyethylene PE - Flat Coat hanger 0.7 - 0.8 -do-
    Extrusion Coating Polypropylene PP - Flat Coat hanger 0.5 - 0.6 -do-
    Polyethylene PE - Flat Coat hanger 0.6 - 0.7 -do-
    Sheet Polypropylene Sheet - Flat Coat hanger 0.8 - 10 Die manifolds can be changed
    and make sheets from 0.750
    mm to 8 mm thick sheets
    Coat hanger 0.3 - 1 For making thinner gauge
    sheets / films
    Pipes Polyethylene/ Small bore tubings / Spiral mandrel 0.25 - >5 Depending on the class of the
    Polypropylene Pipes pipe thickness varies
    PVC Pipes Spider mandrel >1 Depending on the class of the
    pipe thickness varies

    9
    10
    11

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