A wide variety of injection molding machinery and more will feature at the 7000-sq.-ft Arburg booth (W3729) at NPE, including the debut of the supplier’s additive manufacturing solution: the freeformer; that originally debuted at the K Show in Germany in October 2013. Arburg will also hold several presentations on the topic of additive manufacturing at conferences co-located with NPE.

The freeformer enables production of plastic parts without a mold by layering droplets of liquid plastic, resulting in components whose strength is approximately 70% to 80% of conventionally produced injection molded plastic parts according to Arburg.
The freeformer uses inkjet-type printing heads, but has a very different approach in how material is delivered to the heads. Most inkjet systems use filaments of material. Resins in the Arburg "freeform" process are first melted with a screw, similar to how resin is plasticized in the injection molding process. The resin is then broken into tiny droplets in a piezo electric system. The size and surface of the droplets made from very homogenous material creates parts with strong mechanical properties, according to Arburg.
A water-soluble support material is used to build up the 3D geometry. Two freeformers will be presented at the exhibition, producing, for example, a flexible bellows made from TPU.
Injection molding machine offerings on show at the Arburg booth will include the electric Allrounder 370 E demonstrating networked production of individualized toy buggies under Industry 4.0, a collective term for technologies and concepts of value chain organization that facilitates the vision of the Smart Factory.
Furthermore, capabilities in medical technology will be demonstrated using an electric Allrounder 520 A. The clean-room-compatible stainless steel machine will be processing pipette tips in a 64-cavity tool. Further, in silicone processing, an electric Allrounder 570 A two-component machine will be molding suction pads made from PBT and LSR.
In other application areas, a Packaging" version of the hybrid Allrounder 630 H will debut in the US, producing lids using an IML process at the show. Finally, a hydraulic Allrounder 820 S will demonstrate lightweighting solutions for the automotive sector via long-fiber direct injection molding deployed in the overmolding of continuous-fiber reinforced thermoplastic inserts of different thicknesses (called organic sheets).