Photo by WM Thermoforming WM Thermoforming says two Intec FT 900/3 machines have already been purchased.
WM Thermoforming WM Thermoforming says two Intec FT 900/3 machines have already been purchased.
WM Thermoforming Machines of Stabio, Switzerland, is heating up the summer, by showing two complete inline production plants at its factory from 15 June to 15 July.
WM will be showing two Intec FT 900/3 lines, producing two-color disposable cups in 8 and 10 ounces, made of multilayer polypropylene. WM said both machines have been purchased by a major cup maker in the Americas, but does not identify the customer.
Intec FT 900/3 consists of an automatic dosing and feeding unit for raw material in granules, including the management and recycling system for the scrap material. Both lines are equipped with WM’s N.EXT extruders, which the company said has a new screw design that guarantees higher productivity and less power consumption, while also increasing process stability and homogeneity.
The Intec 900/3 can crank out up to 120,000 cups per hour.
In the WM extrusion line, the main extruder has a screw diameter of 75 millimeters, where the reground material is mixed with polypropylene-based material and filled with 70 percent talc. The two other, coextruders, each with a 45-mm diameter, are used for outer colored layer.
Total extrusion capacity is 3,300 pounds an hour.
The flat die head feeds a vertical laminating calender with three rolls, creating a sheet width of 930 mm and a thickness ranging from 0.2 to 2 mm.
The extruded sheet is then send in-line to the transporting system of the Inted FT 900/3 thermoforming machine, which uses a tilting lower forming platen and a servo-assist plugging unit.
The forming tool for the cup lines on display in Stabio will have a 54-cavity mould. After simultaneous forming and in-mould trimming, the cups are removed from the bottom half-mold through a tilting plate rotating at 75 degrees. Then the cups are transported and automatically unloaded into rows on the conveyor belt feeding WM’s rimming unit, developed in-house that has three rotating screws, developed in house. That unit folds the upper edge of the cups before sending then along to counting and packaging system.
Residual screw PP goes in-line to a soundproofed grinding mill, which turns out flake that gets blown into a dosing/mixing unit above the extrusion unit.
