Getting the melt out of the die may look like the main objective in extrusion, but it’s just the first half. Plenty of teams go into halftime with a lead, only to lose it in the second half. Avoid this by paying as much attention to the shaping and cooling phases as to the heating and mixing stages.

Most extruder screws are driven by electric motors, so managing the current (electron flow) through these motors is essential. Here’s why.

In this time of celebration, keeping our spirits up when the sun is down greatly involves extrusion.

Most extruders are single-screw—about 90% is my best estimate. But that is misleading, because the twins are concentrated in two market areas—rigid PVC and compounding—and the twins for one application are very different from the other.