(April 28 2008, Brampton, Ontario, Canada) Following up on the announcement that BE made during K 2007, BE is pleased to announce that it has shipped the world’s first 11-layer blown film line from its plant in Brampton, Ontario, Canada to an undisclosed customer.
Thirteen years ago, during the 1995 Polymers, Laminations and Coatings Conference, BE presented a paper titled “An 11-Layer Blown Film Line: Outlining the Advantages of Multilayer Coextrusion.” In this paper we provided theoretical justification for the possibility that one day the market would request an 11-layer blown film line. That prediction has come to pass in 2008 and proves that BE continues to lead the way in blown film coextrusion. The SCD® multilayer streamlined coextrusion die became the world’s first successfully commercial 7-layer die and later led the way to the first 8, 9, 10 and now, 11-layer blown film lines. BE has shipped more 7 - 11 layer SCD® systems than any other machinery manufacturer in the world. At latest count its 77.
The 11-layer SCD® die 9 (see attached photo) is an industry first, and so is the solution that BE developed to accommodate the 11 extruders around the die. As the number of layers goes up, the extruder arrangement becomes increasingly constricted. BE’s engineering group knew that arranging 11 extruders radially around the SCD® die would require longer adaptors and result in a very crowded hot section. A suitable extruder arrangement needs to accommodate a die access platform and leave enough room between the extruders for servicing access. Ideally, for barrier film coextrusion the adaptors should be short and straight.
BE’s innovative solution was to design piggybacked extruders, or two extruders with one mounted on top of another. (see attached image.) The design of the SCD® provides a good marriage for piggybacked extruders since the extruder centre line heights are different for each layer. The configuration for the 11-layer line then became two piggybacked extruders plus seven normal extruders, creating a radial extruder configuration similar to a 9-layer line but with two of the extruders being doubles.
BE (Brampton Engineering) equipment is manufactured at its ISO registered plant in Canada. BE trademarked products include SCD®-3 die, ITALYCS® control systems, AquaFrost® and I-Flex® gauge control systems.
