Foshan Battenfeld Launches High Speed ​​PE-RT Pipe Extrusion Line

Due to the excellent long-term hydrostatic strength of PE-RT (high temperature resistant polyethylene) pipe and its many advantages over other materials, its market share in domestic floor heating pipe systems is steadily increasing. Battenfeld Plastics Equipment Co., Ltd., a leading manufacturer of plastic extrusion machinery in Foshan, has successfully developed a high-speed PE-RT pipe extrusion line by virtue of its extensive experience in pipe extrusion.

Prerequisite for high-speed extrusion of PE-RT pipe is proper extrusion equipment. Unlike ordinary HDPE raw materials, PE-RT has a narrow molecular weight distribution, which makes the design of its extrusion processing components different from HDPE. To this end, Battenfeld pipe extrusion experts carefully modified the company's extruded parts designed for HDPE pipes, achieving the goal of high-speed extrusion of PE-RT pipes and ensuring the high quality of the pipes.

The production line uses Battenfeld's high-performance single-screw extruder BCE1-60-30B. Its optimized design of the barrier screw and slotted barrel ensures a homogeneous melt and stable extrusion. The extruder's high-torque gearbox is sufficient to handle higher extrusion back pressures than HDPE when producing PE-RT. The production line mainly produces PE-RT pipes of 20x2.0mm and 16x2.0mm specifications. The mold used is a basket die that has been successfully used for the production of HDPE pipes for a long time. Through the modification of the existing die, the situation of melt fracture in the extrusion process is effectively avoided and the surface finish of the PE-RT pipe is guaranteed to be high. The disc type sizing sleeve is applied because the frictional force with the surface of the pipe is the minimum. The spray water ring installed in front of the sizing sleeve forms a wetted surface on the surface of the pipe to avoid sticking of the pipe to the sizing sleeve. In addition to extruding parts, the perfectly matched downstream equipment is also very important for ensuring high-quality extrusion of PE-RT tubing. The total cooling length of the production line is approximately 27 meters, including a dual-chamber vacuum sizing machine and three cooling sinks. The purpose of the cooling length configuration is to meet the amount of cooling required to produce a 20x2.0 mm pipe at a line speed of 25 m/min, taking into account the additional cooling required for the coil.

Battenfeld chose a flying knife cutter among its various types of cutting machines to support the PE-RT pipe production line. The PE-RT pipe produced at high speed is cut by a cutter mounted directly on the AC servo motor of the flying knife cutter. The resulting cut is very smooth and does not produce any sawdust. PE-RT pipes are usually supplied in rolls to facilitate the installation of floor heating piping systems. Battenfeld specifically developed the semi-automatic duplex HW1300/2, suitable for pipes up to 32 mm in diameter. There are two working modes for the coiler, the low speed mode is used when starting the new volume, and the full speed mode with tension control is used during normal production. The continuous cable device driven by the motor ensures that the coil is neat and the maximum coil length is 300m. Only one person is required to operate the coiler, including the startup of the new volume.