A publication of the European Plastics Distributors Association
Issue 10 | February 2006 | www.epda.com
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2006 EPDA ANNUAL CONFERENCEEPDA staff is busy organizing the final details for the 2006 Annual Conference, to be held in The Midlands, just south of Birmingham, England at the Marriott Forest of Arden, which is set in the English countryside and just 20 minutes from the Birmingham International Airport. The conference will be held from Friday, 12 May to Monday, 15 Sunday. Please watch your e-mail for registration materials, to come in February. NEW MEMBERS |
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EPDA members are invited to submit news on their company and products for publication in EPDA’s E-Update newsletter. Submissions should be about 100 words and may include photographs. News may be submitted in any language, to be translated by EPDA staff. Please e-mail news (in a Microsoft Word document or as text in an e-mail) to epda@epda.com. Please note that submissions may be edited for length and clarity. PERSPEX DISTRIBUTION APPOINTS NEW BRANCH
MANAGER
He succeeds Norman Hargreaves who retired late last year and was instrumental in establishing the Blackburn operation as one of the most successful in the group. “This is an excellent opportunity for me to be able to return to my distribution ‘roots’ and I am looking forward to the challenge,” he said. TÖÖSTUSPLAST LTD. MOVES TO NEW
PRODUCTION WAREHOUSE The investment of €1 million was driven by market needs for new services and materials in the Baltic region. The new address of Tööstusplast Ltd.’s main office and warehouse is: Tööstusplast Ltd., Savimäe 1, Vahi k., Tartu vald, 60511 Estonia. The company is also online at www.tplast.ee. IPS EXPANSION ALMOST COMPLETED The effect on stockholding capability is dramatic. Before expansion, the company held over 74,000 meters (46 miles) of pipe in stock in a daily picking area. The new facility increases this by 14 percent, but in addition there is now a new high-bay store for bulk quantities of pipe that more than doubles the overall capacity. Fittings and valves racking has been increased by 53 percent. Together, with new mezzanine floors to hold bulk storage, the overall stock facility has been improved. During the early part of 2006, the company will be working through an inventory program that will make further improvements to ex-stock availability for all piping products, delivering even better service to customers. Additional information on International Plastic Systems can be found at www.ips-plastics.com. |
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Articles reporting on plastic
products are prepared from information furnished by CAST ACRYLIC METALLIC TUBES For further information, please visit www.gevacril.com or contact info@gevacril.com. EXTENDED CHOICE AND EASE OF SPECIFICATION The company, one of Britain’s leading independent plastic and non-ferrous metal sheet distributors, has invested in the latest CNC processing equipment and additional product choices. To simplify the specification and selection process in light of the expanded products, Righton has produced a new catalogue, itemising the sheet options available. Copies of the catalogue are available on request. John Douglas, business development director — plastics, explains, “We now offer one of the most extensive ranges of plastic sheet for signage, display and shopfitting, reinforced by an equally wide selection of aluminium profiles and fasteners. The combination, with the new catalogue and state-of-art equipment, enables customers to easily select their requirements for each project from one single source of supply, knowing it will be delivered as required, whether as stock sheet or precisely and cleanly cut to specific needs, and, through our strategic national network of service centres, when they need it. That helps save them time and effort.” For more information, visit www.righton.co.uk. PERSPEX® PRISMEX® LIGHTS UP OXFORD
STREET The result was stunning — a wall consisting of 60 illuminated colour-changing Perspex Prismex panels, each measuring 1200 mm x 700 mm and interspersed with plasma screens, gives a maximum impact in this key area. Chaos Design was then asked to design a lighting feature at the main entrance to the store — to frame and enhance the Boots corporate identity. This involved the installation of over 450 blue LED’s set into an array of 600 mm wide Perspex Prismex panels located around the two-story glass entrance to the store. By using Perspex Prismex in both locations, a stunning and eye-catching entrance attracts shoppers from outside the store and the main installation on the wall of the staircase area covering three floors provides further visual stimulation to shoppers once they are inside and perfectly demonstrates the key benefits of Perspex Prismex — slim even illumination, reduced energy consumption and high light output. For more information, please visit www.lucitesolutions.com. |
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| APPLICATION Showcase |
| Articles reporting on applications are submitted by EPDA members. For more information, contact the companies listed. KOI BREATHE SIGH OF RELIEF Fully grown koi, each differing from the other in color and markings, can grow to up to one meter long and 60 years old. Koi that are kept as ornamental fish need a large pond with very clean, well-filtered water. Clear water is absolutely essential for successful koi growth. That is why fish droppings, food waste and other suspended matter must constantly be filtered out. Standard filter systems based on paper filters have proven effective, but their special steel housing and electric power make them expensive to buy and fairly expensive to run. Fish breeder and engineer Michael Rupp knew there must be less expensive ways to do it and started to plan. His aim was to develop a highly effective filter system without parts that are liable to mechanical damage and preferably not running on electric power. Special steel was out of the question because the system was also to be inexpensive. Rupp found more than just an alternative housing material for the system in extrusion-quality Polystone® PE 300 sheets from Röchling. In October 2004, Rupp wondered, why not use a waterwheel to convert the kinetic energy of water and control the filter system? The result was a filter system in which the incoming dirty pond water runs over a paper filter roll on which the dirt is first deposited. Once the filter paper, which resembles coffee filter paper in fineness, can no longer take up any more dirt, the water level rises in the filter because the water can no longer run off. It is rerouted onto a waterwheel that rotates, turning the roll of filter paper via a V-belt so that clean paper can take up the dirt once more. The waterwheel then promptly stops turning. The design’s engineering achievement consists mainly of the waterwheel gear design with its transmission ratio of 100 to 1. The roll of filter paper rotates exactly once every 100 turns of the waterwheel. The entire filter unit is fully enclosed in a 530 x 600 x 730 mm container made of black Polystone G. “When I found out from a first prototype that PVC was unsuitable as a filter housing, I asked around among industry suppliers who could provide the right material,” Rupp says. Röchling’s machined components department showed an immediate interest in the designer’s problem — and was promptly able to supply the right materials and lend the designer a hand with materials technology. “Röchling offered me everything I needed. They supplied me with PE sheets cut to size and a Röchling partner company welds them together.” The black, extrusion-quality PE 300 sheets have the major advantage of being resistant to ultraviolet light, so the filter unit can be placed in the open alongside the pool and only needs a little shade in the summer. It is also an ideal material to weld. Exacting tolerances were required, so Röchling used CNC precision milling units to cut the sheets. During production, the Polystone G sheets were handled with the utmost care so as not to leave even the slightest trace of a scratch on the front or sides of the filter system. Genesis has so far manufactured 110 filter systems in two versions made of Polystone. “The quality of the sheeting is right. I am very satisfied,” Rupp says. “At my mechanical engineering company I did a lot of work with special steel, but PE is a great alternative.” And he uses another Röchling material with enhanced stiffness, natural polypropylene, for the filter wheel bearing. Rupp is currently working on a filter with a throughput of 100,000 liters an hour for large ponds, up to and including zoological basins. Here too, he enjoys the support of the Haren technicians with whom he can confer at any time when a problem requires a solution or when he is looking for a suitable material for a specific design solution. For more information, visit www.roechling-plastics.com. MAKING AND USING PLASTIC HONEYCOMB PANELS
The primary function of external sheets is bending resistance. The core function is to provide cross-section shape stabilization and shear load resistance through the thickness. (The core material must be light in weight with high rigidity.) Solutions with non-transparent sandwich panels cannot be used when light transmission plays an important role. That is why plastics such as polycarbonate (PC), styrene acrylonitrile copolymer (SAN) or acrylic (PMMA) can be interesting materials for this application. How do we make a honeycomb panel in plastic material? Thermoforming, using a special process, can transform a plastic sheet into thicknesses from 2 to 5 mm to a structural panel that can arrive up to 60 mm thickness. Special thermoforming allows one to create a cell structure, two opposite series of conic cells, and results in a structural panel that can be transparent, with no communication between the faces. There are a lot of parameters that drive the process, mainly the chain polymeric structure of the base sheet, temperature, rate of increase/decrease temperature, rate of special thermoforming process, etc. This makes us understand that we face a non-standard thermoforming process. Gluing two external sheets on the core is the next step to obtain
a sandwich panel to be used in different applications from interior
design, to furniture, to transparent support for thin layers of
stone and more.
In the two examples, plastic outperforms standard materials like wood or wood derivatives as it is 100 percent water resistant, and, if needed, can be transparent. It is also quite rigid. For example, a composite panel with a core of 30 mm thickness polycarbonate and a 3 mm thickness sheet has a bending stiffness (EJ) of 4270 Nm2 /m. In summary, plastics, especially transparent plastics, are being used in the manufacture of honeycomb panels, and are being selected over other materials for their light-transmission properties. For more information, contact Tito Franzini, plant manager at Bencore Srl. Tel: + (39) 0585 830129 or www.bencore.it. |
| NEWS from the Industry |
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HIGH PERFORMANCE
PLASTICS REPORT NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE The monthly informational service for manufacturers, suppliers and users of performance plastics includes market and industry news, new materials and processing, performance applications, environmental issues, technological developments and an events calendar. An analysis section covers specific topics affecting the industry including interpretation of end user markets, corporate strategies, industry statistics and plastics prices. Every month, this concise newsletter will keep you up-to-date with the latest developments in a format that doesn’t take all day to read. Each issue of High Performance Plastics brings you in-depth market analysis on a topic of relevance to the industry and provides you with all the latest news regarding mergers, acquisitions and corporate strategies in an easy to read format. Plus, all articles contain contact details so you can follow up items of specific interest with those concerned. Subscriptions are on a calendar year basis and also include online access. For more information on this report, visit www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c31052. |
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For a list of all events, please visit www.epda.com/industry.cfm PLAST’06 IAPD SPRING MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE PLASTIC PIPES MARKETS: RUSSIA AND CEE 2006 FLEXPO 2006 EPDA ANNUAL CONFERENCE MEDICAL POLYMERS 2006 Rapra Technology Limited is pleased to announce the Fifth International Conference on Medical Polymers, to be held in Cologne, Germany 6 to 7 June 2006. This event will bring together world experts in plastics and rubber to talk about the latest materials and to tackle issues affecting medical device manufacturers. For more information, please visit www.medicalpolymers.org. |
During the past six months, International Plastic Systems has been
busy creating what is believed to be the UK’s largest single
stock facility for plastic piping products. The building has doubled
in size, providing over 50,000 square feet (4,650 square meters)
of warehouse and offices in addition to a large secure outdoor compound.
When Chaos Design Consultants were asked to design and install two
lighting features in the new Boots flagship store in London’s
Oxford Street, they knew that Perspex® Prismex®, one of
the innovative solutions from the Perspex Lucite® range, would
meet the challenge.
The metallic-colored ogon and the white tancho with its red spot
are steadily gaining popularity in Germany. They are not new car
models but koi carp that can be worth even more than a compact car.
“Colorful carp” are delighting more and more enthusiasts.
Genesis GmbH & Co. KG developed a filter system based on paper
filters with support from Röchling Engineering Plastics KG
in Germany.
In
the last century, metallic material in general, and aluminium ones
in particular, have had an important role in the fabrication of
honeycomb panels and structures in a variety of industries —
the aeronautic industry is one such example. The typical solution
is the realization of a sandwich panel made of two robust thin layers
glued on a thick central core. Structural opportunity of this configuration
has been known since 1820, but the actual application is dated to
about 1930 because of the lagging development of structural glue
vinyl-phenolic and rub-phenolic.  |
Copyright 2006 |
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