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September 5, 2006

9 Min Read
Blowmolding: Packaging segment strong at NPE 2006





Sidel Actis barrier treatment can give bottles a guaranteed shelf life of 20 weeks.



Uniloy Milacron UMIB medical injection blowmolding machines produce containers from 2 ml to 2 liters.



Wilmington High Speed SB Series can be fitted with a smaller clamp to handle 80-ml bottles.







A Magplastic SSB02 two-stage stretch blowmolding machine was shown at NPE 2006 equipped with the company?s neck orientation and preferential heating technologies.

The preferential heating process works as follows:
1. Heated preforms exit the profiling oven,
2. Preforms are stopped and only the two opposed zones are exposed to heat radiation,
3. Preforms are re-oriented by 90°, and,
4. Preforms are blown into bottles.


NPE 2006 was a significant venue for producers of blowmolding equipment dedicated to packaging applications, which is to say mostly bottles. The markets for plastics bottles have exploded over the last decade, going from almost nowhere to almost everywhere, including resistant markets such as beer and other alcoholic beverages. There is a lot to be gained by equipment suppliers that become established in these markets. The volumes are such that few processors run just one machine. As in any other process, blowmolders may try just one, but if it runs well, they?ll be back for more.

What follows is a review of the wares presented at NPE 2006 by primary blowmolding equipment suppliers for packaging applications. For a review of suppliers of controls, preform molds, and related equipment.

Bekum America showed its BM-406D co-extrusion tandem machine with multiple cavities, designed to produce 8-oz HDPE milk bottles for school lunches. With 24 cavities making 11,520 bottles/hour and more than 90 million bottles/year, the company hopes the plastic packaging will compete favorably with cardboard milk cartons, and also be more appealing to children.

Bekum has also produced a 100-ml drinkable yogurt bottle for the dairy products market. After being filled and sealed, these bottles are sterilized in an autoclave. The tandem blowmolding system has forty cavities that yield a production rate of 19,500 bottles/hour. The system reportedly produces very consistent bottle weight distribution, despite the very high extrusion speed and the requirement for excellent wall thickness distribution as well as parison concentricity at the top and bottom of the bottles. The weight difference between the upper and bottom parts of the bottle is less than .2g. Final bottle weight is 20% lower than the previous blowmolder obtained.

Kautex Machines, returning to the consumer packaging machinery market, showed its KCC 20D dual-clamp extrusion machine. The system is suitable for bottles as well as canisters and small industrial products. Its platens can accommodate large molds and offer clamp force from 11 to 43 tons.

The machine is equipped with a WVP 140 dual-parison head with a center distance of 270 mm and it produced a 1-gal round handleware bottle at 1000 bottles/hour. The KCC Series includes three shuttle clamp models (KCC 10, KCC 20, KCC 25) in single- and double-clamp configurations as well as a fixed single-clamp Model KCC 30. Extrusion systems are available for monolayer and multilayer products and include a view-stripe option. Continuous-extrusion parison heads are offered for up to 10-fold production. Accumulator heads are available for the KCC 30 model.

The KCC machines are controlled with a BlowCommand 4 industrial PC system based on Beckhoff hardware and a color touch-screen panel. Remote diagnostics via a built-in modem or Ethernet network is a standard feature. Carriage transport and mold open-and-close motion are closed-loop controlled; blow pin calibration is accomplished via a proportional valve. All KCC machines are assembled by Shunde Kautex in China to Kautex? specifications.

Kautex has further broadened its range of products offered for consumer packaging applications by adding the KLS long stroke series. The KCC shuttle series accommodates up to 6 cavities at 100-mm center distance per clamping unit. The KLS long-stroke series is available for up to12 cavities at 100-mm center distance. As with the KCC Series, the KLS Series includes three single- and double-station models with production capacities up to twice that of the KCC series.

Magplastic, a Swiss manufacturer of linear stretch blowmolding machinery, demonstrated two-stage stretch blowmolding gear used to produce PET bottles and containers. The SSB02 machine produces complex PET bottles in sizes from 40 ml to 5 liters and neck diameters up to 88 mm for beverage, hot fill, food, liquor, cosmetic, detergent, and pharmaceutical applications. Wide-mouth containers for dry or highly viscous products can be blown on the SSB-02 with minor adaptations. Up to 2200 containers/hour with a neck ring diameter up to 88 mm can be manufactured.

The SSB 02 features preferential heating, which balances the hot and cold axes for difficult bottles. Since this technology allows very precise wall thickness distribution, even on complex shaped bottles, preform weight can be optimized to minimize costs.

A neck orientation feature allows blowing containers with the neck threads always oriented in the same position in relation to the container design, yielding precision without the need for costly positioning notches. The accurate and flexible positioning can be easily set up with the computer system. Less than .8 sec is needed to orientate the neck thread.

Siapi presented its fully electric two-stage linear blowmolding machines for PET bottles. Both the press and the stretch system are driven by electronically controlled electric motors. The 14-cavity EA14 blowmolding machine has a production capacity of 18,000 bottles/hour, said to be a world record for linear blowers.

Siapi designs and manufactures its equipment in Italy. It specializes in stretch blowmolding machines for PET bottles, starting from preforms. The machines range from 1 to 14 cavities (up to 20,000 bottles/hour). Siapi also produces machines especially suitable for big bottles, from 5-20 liters (1-5 gal). The company says that the first one-way 5-gal PET container in Europe was blown on Siapi equipment in October 2000.

Sidel exhibited two models from its new generation of plastics blowmolding equipment. The SBO 4 Compact is designed for rates below 7000 bottles/hour, and the SBO 34 HighSpeed has broken the 60,000 PET bottle/hour barrier.

The SBO 4 Compact is a linear blowmolding machine. Designed to produce at rates of up to 6400 bottles/hour, the machine is said to reduce bottle blowing costs by 20% compared to previous models, while guaranteeing machine efficiency rates of 95% and production rates of 1600 bottles/hour/mold for sizes up to 3 liters. The machine exhibited at NPE 2006 is the first sold to an American processor.

With over 1000 bottles produced every minute and 61,200 bottles/hour, the SBO 34 HighSpeed cranks out bottles under 24 oz. Equipped with 28 heating modules and 34 blowing stations, this high performance machine is reportedly breaking speed records and reducing operating costs by 30%. The machine exhibited was also sold to an American processor.

Sidel emphasized processing innovations including lightweighting, barrier, and alternative materials. At 25 bars and an output rate of 1800 bottles/hour, the SBO 34 HighSpeed can produce 12-oz bottles weighing 16.5g for the carbonated soft drink market. In addition, the Actis barrier treatment can give these bottles a guaranteed shelf life of 20 weeks. Also displayed were blowmolding possibilities in alternative materials like PP and PLA.

SIG Corpoplast presented its lightweighting capabilities along with its Blowmax 10 Series III stretch machine. The company demonstrated the stability of lightweighted bottles. For a machine with an annual output of 78 million bottles, reducing the weight of a PET bottle by 1g can reduce material costs by €80,000.

The company says that lightweighting means striking the right balance between what is technically feasible and what is reasonable in a practical application. Modern PET bottles must be produced in a cost-efficient way: light, yet still stable, and with increased output. This calls for minimized material input; optimum design of preform, bottle and mold; reduced heating energy and blow air consumption; blow air recycling; and trials with new materials.


Techne North America displayed its new cooling technology on a 4000T660 continuous extrusion blowmolding machine, demonstrated running a 12-cavity mold producing a food container. Said to reduce the cycle time of extrusion blowmoldings by 25%, the technology is integrated into the machine design, which also includes an in-machine leak-testing feature.

Uniloy Milacron partnered with FGH Systems to demonstrate the UMS 24D shuttle machine. The double-station, 12- by 19-ft footprint machine molded 1-liter handled HDPE bottles in an eight-cavity mold.

An addition to the UMR2000 reciprocating screw blowmolding machine, the new air-tight, controlled atmosphere UMR2000CB (clean blow) model uses sterile blow air and an enclosed and pressurized clamp area. Containers are produced and sealed with bacteria-free blow air and can be used for dairy, juice, and water products.

The company?s new UMIB medical injection blowmolding machines are capable of producing containers from 2 ml to 2 liters with precise neck finish, wall thickness, weight, and no scrap or pinch-off scar. It?s designed for sterile clean-room applications, with features such as a smooth-design magnetic mold clamping system for the lower die set, carbon-filtered blowing air, stainless steel core rods, a fully electric extraction system, and a mold area and conveyor enclosed with a pressurized, laminar flow of HEPA-filtered air. The machine's nickel-plated mold area also eliminates any chance of paint contamination and allows steam sterilization.

Six different models of UMIB machines are available, with injection clamp forces of 39 to 180 tons and shot-size capabilities of 5-105 in3. A triangle-shaped head with a set of core rods on each face rotates 120° with each cycle to position the rods for successive steps. The design allows very high cavitation with smaller bottles, and interchangeable heads allow processing a wide variety of part sizes and shapes.

A preform is injection-molded, providing dimensional neck precision. The preform is then blown, and extracted and uprighted on a conveyor belt. Core-rod temperature control is available to optimize quality and consistency. FGH Systems, Uniloy Milacron?s partner, booked what it says was its biggest sale ever at an NPE, taking an order from Berry Setco Plastics (Cranberry, NJ) for three Uniloy Milacron UMS 16.D shuttle blowmolding machines. Frank Hohmann, president of FGH Systems, said the machines will be used for a specialized, proprietary packaging application. Engineered by B&W, Uniloy Milacron?s German operation, the UMS 16D offers state-of-the-art processing efficiencies and ergonomics, according to Hohmann. User advantages include tiebar-less accessibility, in-machine trimming, superior finish and neck precision, and closed-loop positioning and speed control. For more than a decade, FGH Systems has been Uniloy?s technical sales and service center for German-made extrusion shuttle blowmolding machines.

Wilmington Series IV high-speed rotary machines have single-point water connections, on-board pneumatic controls, and a motorized mold open/close feature to enable easy mold changeovers. The on-board pneumatic controls allow quick and safe adjustment of functions from the operator station during full production.

The High Speed SB Series for bottles from 200 to 500 ml serves the high-volume dairy, food, juice, and liquid yogurt market. A smaller clamp can also handle bottles as small as 80 ml. The machines can run up to 60 cavities for up to 30,000 bottles/hour, depending on the bottle. Like the company?s larger machines, the extrusion rates and layer configuration can be designed to match any application such as white-black-white or barrier bottles.

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