Shrink film. It is quick and easy to pack anything in it, regardless of weight and size, from plastic bottles to, for instance, bricks.
The technology of thermal shrinkage has made life easier for manufacturers of different things.
Every day at this plant, for example, dozens of thousands of bricks are packed in shrink film.
One hundred or one hundred and fifty pieces are collected together, covered with a huge polyethylene bag, which then is sealed.
The process lasts a little more than one minute and now the brick can stand under the sun and rain.
And it is so convenient to transport loads.
But how to make film that would protect goods from external factors, hold a cargo of many kilos, and would shrink with heating instead of melting?
It depends on knowledge and technology.
Let's see how it's done at Planeta Plastic Plant.
Everything starts with the formula.
A chief technologist calculates the amount of each ingredient to be added to polyethylene pallets in order to obtain the desired properties.
Depending on the film intended use, an individual formula is developed, which can include up to twelve different components.
All of them are carefully tested in the laboratory and only then come into production.
The plant has the state-of-the-art equipment from Italy.
One can say that this is Rolls Royce in the production of shrink film.
Elegant like an Italian, this machine produces up to four hundred kilograms of shrink film per hour.
This is how three-layer film is created.
Pneumatic pumps load raw materials into the dispensing system.
These are three reservoirs, where a mixture for each layers is prepared separately.
The system accurately measures the required amount of different ingredients.
It mixes them and transfers into three extruders.
There raw material are gradually heated from sixty degrees at the beginning of the process to two hundred degrees at the end of it.
Under strong pressure, the mixture is fed to a molding head.
At this stage, three film layers are merged into a huge balloon as high as a four-storied house.
But why does this balloon not fall and not rupture?
At the top of the magic machine, there are special rolls that pull film up.
And on the way to these rolls film passes through a special basket.
It is equipped with plastic rollers, which rotate and pass film further.
This construction holds the airship vertically.
And here is another know-how of Italian engineers: the ring of film thickness control.
The special sensor constantly rotates around and fixes thickness of the walls.
It is important to be the same throughout the whole film surface.
When parameters deviate, the sensor informs the main computer and the system calibrates the ring as needed.
When passing a fourteenth meter path upward, film is cooled down, collected and folded with the roller system at the top.
And then being already folded, it returns back to the foot of the machine.
Here it is collected with other rollers.
Special knifes slit it.
Thus, we can get several rolls at a time.
Now the computer gives a command, and a new empty film rod appears instead of a roll.
Meanwhile operators take away cut rolls, weigh them and label.
Then film is sent to the laboratory.
Here, we test its size and thickness, durability, and most importantly - heat-shrinking properties.
Film can be of any colour and you can print anything on it.
Most often, people order their company’s logo. You can do it on special printing equipment immediately at the factory.
And this is a finished products warehouse.
It looks like the library.
According to the original barcode, which each produced roll has, you can quickly find its location and ship to the customer.
Inscriptions:
Polyethylene
Antistatic
Light stabilizer
Thermostabilizer
Dye
14 m in high
Productivity is up to 400 kg/hour
Dispensing unit
Extruder temperature is 60 to 200 degrees
Film thickness is 20-200 microns
3 мар 2016
