Extrusion-Pipe & Profile

Custom injection molder Dickten Masch Plastics (DMP) has hired Andy Bondhus to work as a plastics engineer at the firm.  Bondhus will work out of the company's processing facility in Iowa, where he will support part design, mold flow, tooling, and tool design for DMP. Bondhus began his career at Lake Tool Inc. as a moldmaker, ran his own company (Plastic Solutions Inc.) for 11 years, and most recently was a tooling and design engineer at Innovative Injection Technologies Inc. (i2tech).

Expansions slated for two of its facilities means thermoplastics compound supplier Teknor Apex Co. will increase its supply capabilities for both rigid and flexible polyvinyl chloride compounds. The company has long offered flexible PVC compounds in the U.S., but rigid PVC compounds are new for the firm there.

The company, based in Pawcatuck, RI, plans in August to add a new flexible PVC compounding line with a nominal annual capacity of 13,600 tonnes (30 million lb) to its site at Fountain Inn, SC.

The Malaysian Plastics Manufacturers Association (MPMA) has developed a Roadmap based on inputs provided by plastics industry participants that will act as a guide for plastic processors to meet the aspirations of the government's New Economic Model (NEM).

An improved grade of polyphtalamide overcomes the material's inherent brittleness, giving extrusion processors the ability to use the material to replace metal in automotive engine compartment tubing applications.

A new system for corrugated plastic drainage pipes is said to offer throughput of up to twice as much as conventional systems. PVC, PE, and PP all can be processed on the new systems.

Shown is a mold block with the typical tunnel profile and a tunnel-shaped drainage pipe.

The recent past has proven tough for many processors in this space, but viewed in the long term, issues such as the need to preserve potable water and to supply more people with sufficient housing mean there is plenty of growth ahead for pipe and profile processing.

Only six months removed from the merger that created it, extrusion equipment supplier battenfeld-cincinnati (Bad Oeynhausen, Germany) is promising advances from all three of its divisions at the K (Oct. 27-Nov. 3; Düsseldorf, Germany).

One of the world's leading suppliers of silicone rubber has spent considerable R&D time developing materials designed to help make life easier for extruders, including a grade for co-extrusion onto thermoplastics with no need for pretreatment. The new materials will be officially introduced during the K 2010 tradeshow, which begins Oct. 27 in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Renewed activity in replacing aging and obsolete water and wastewater pipe infrastructure in many cities throughout the United States will create demand for pipe. A report from The Freedonia Group said that demand is expected to rise 5.8% annually to $19.6 billion in 2014, exceeding 5.3 billion ft.

A reduction in interest rates, assistance from the country's national development bank, and booming domestic demand are lifting Brazilian manufacturers of plastics processing equipment, even as a stronger Real impacts its export potential and Chinese machine makers target Brazilian converters.