Extrusion International 3-2021

44 Extrusion International 3/2021 PIPE EXTRUSION Shape your Pipes, Shape your Future and Go Green Sica, an Italian plastic pipe machinery manufacturer, has de fi nitely gone green with its machinery to save en- ergy, material and process costs. All the machines in the line, from haul- off to packaging, have their speci fi c “green” features. Regarding belling machines, an ex- ample is the use of short-wave ovens that are active only during the heat- ing phase and for the time needed to reach the fi nal set temperature of noise levels, exceptional precision and repeatability of positioning, total real- time control of process parameters in terms of working strokes and speeds, and no contaminating fl uids emission. These are important advantages es- pecially for belling machines for small dimension pipes that were originally pneumatically operated. All Sica new belling machines like Uni- bell andMultibell for PVC pipes, or Ev- erbell for PP pipes are highly produc- tive (many models process more than one pipe simultaneously) and low consumption. Sica’s decision to invest in these new technologies encourages not only a regard for the environment, it also leads to a reduction of pipe produc- tion costs, thus allowing faster returns on capital expenditures. the material, thus reducing energy consumption and avoiding scrap ma- terial. Another aspect of the new belling process is the electromechanically op- erated socket forming unit in place of conventional hydraulic and pneumatic solutions. Thedecisiontoutilizeelectri- cal technology produced several ben- e fi ts: highly dynamic operation, low SICA S.p.A. www.sica-italy.com The need for innovative green technology in the plastic pipe production industry capable of guaranteeing high performance, process fl exibility and ease of use while allowing reduced energy consumption, has become increasingly pressing and has had a marked in fl uence on the design of various types of extrusion line machinery, including belling machines