Reading time: Ca. 2 min. | An article by Maria Elsweier
This year, Timo Wolfrath and the sales team in the Industry Division recorded more success stories than they’ve done for a long time. These include examples which illustrate that TUNAP not only makes a difference with its special products but also with the advice that it offers its customers. Some of these memos will now be formulated as a report and will gradually find their way into the corporate communication. Below is a description of a customer in the plastics industry supported by Kai-Willy Wolter.
Special lubricant to optimise the GFRP composite material process
Metal-plastic composite materials are indispensable in the automotive industry. Because of the aim to use lightweight components, the manufacture of composite materials is an excellent development to reduce weight. Associated with this, it is vital to find supporting protection for processing abrasive plastics in order to reduce maintenance intervals and lower costs by prolonging tool life.
When we visited our customer the plant was experiencing a lot of downtime, frequent maintenance and an unusually high degree of wear and tear with hot runner nozzles. No producer can accept a situation like this for any length of time. It is imperative to analyse the problems and rectify them quickly and in a sustainable manner.
The conditions that Mr Wolter found were challenging. The composite material had to be injected in a very high temperature range. The combination of high temperatures and an abrasive plastic were so aggressive that the hot runner nozzles experienced increased wear and tear.
Instead of on a monthly basis, the costly maintenance was carried out almost weekly. This was in addition to production losses and supply problems. As a supplier of highly complex metal-plastic hybrid components for the automotive industry, there was a lot of pressure to find a solution.
Normally, the hot runner nozzles for glass-fibre reinforced plastic are not lubricated. In this case, this idea led to a solution to the problem. In this instance, our TUNGREASE BA does not provide lubrication to optimise sliding properties, but forms an ultra thin protective film between the molten plastic and the metal surface of the nozzle. Due to the reliable temperature stability and adhesive property of the grease, in this application, lubrication of the hot runner nozzles will be part of the maintenance routine in future. Maintenance is again carried out at reasonable intervals and unforeseen production losses are a thing of the past.