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| Solvay booth at Fakuma 2018 |
At the annual trade show in Friedrichshafen Solvay Specialty Polymers has launched new Ryton PPS grades and announced a new competence center located at Bollate, Italy.
Andreas Lutz, Area Development Manager, Automotive Europe, and Marc Schelles, Technical Marketing Engineer, reveal more details about Solvay showcasing at Fakuma.
Mr. Lutz, as our readers are mostly extrusion experts, could you please focus on the technologies presented at Solvay booth for the extrusion market?
The new products we have presented at Fakuma are 3 Ryton polyphenylene sulphide (PPS) extrusion grades. Solvay's injection molding Ryton grades have exhibited a proven fit in many existing connector and bracketry fittings. And now we are concentrating on the extrusion application for automotive sector, such as cooling.
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| Ryton PPS coolant line |
Extruding Ryton PPS is something new to our customers. And after the pipe or a tube is extruded, it needs to be thermoformed which is the state-of-the art process for many pipe and tube applications. That is why we work very closely with our customers in the automotive industry.
We have 3 different formulations, Ryton®XE3500BL, Ryton®XE4500BL and Ryton®XE5500BL with the stiffness varying between 1500 MPa (218 ksi) and 2500 MPa (363 ksi). These are used for flexible tubes of different wall thicknesses and diameters. We also assist our customers to match the different stiffness requirements after post-extrusion thermoforming.
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| Marc Schelles, Technical Marketing Engineer, Solvay Specialty Polymers |
Besides, the fittings are also made of PPS. Using new Ryton extrusion grades for demanding cooling line assembly applications requests technical support in successful welding molded connectors and extruded pipes.
Mr. Schelles, as far as I know, in order to support the growth of automotive customers in the EMEA Solvay invests in the Application Development Center. Could you please tell us more about it?
We have the Application Development Center in Bollate, Italy. There our customers can take an opportunity to try new materials. Recently Solvay has added new extrusion equipment alongside the injection molding processing capabilities. It also aims at supporting the introduction of new PPS grades to the market.
In a dedicated fluid-handling design laboratory the customers can go through all the process from part design to prototype cooling line extrusion. They learn how to run the material. They can use our screw configurations and have the samples and then compare the results to those they have at their facilities.
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| Application Development Center Bollate |
How do you like Fakuma 2018? Do you meet mostly existing customers here?
This year Fakuma is very busy. We have presented a wide range of our portfolio and we are glad our new products have had a successful launch. As for attendees, of, course, Fakuma means much for interacting with our existing customers. But I'm always surprised to see many new processing companies here.
Actually, Fakuma is an event that gives you an opportunity to contact a lot of customers within short time. It is a very conveniently placed show, just in the center of European plastics processing area, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Sometimes the venue is difficult to reach, but, for sure, it's worth coming here every year.
