pps proceeding - Abstract Preview
pps proceeding
Symposium: S07 - Processing (injection moulding, extrusion, blow moulding, thermoforming)
Oral Presentation
 
 

An Experimental Study on Process-oriented Scale-up / Scale-down in Blown Film Extrusion

Dohm Christoph (1)*, Schiffers Reinhard (1)

(1) University of Duisburg-Essen - NRW - Germany

The transfer of experimental testing results from a small-scale system to a large-scale production system is known as scale-up or, conversely, scale-down. For film-producing companies, scale-up is a common procedure in the development process of new composite films or material recipes, because experimental testing on a laboratory-scale blown film line saves materials, time and, thus, costs. The main objective during the transfer is to obtain equal film properties which requires a systematic and practicable approach. Taking into account the interaction of the process parameters in blown film extrusion and their correlation to final film properties, the process-oriented scale-up / scale-down strategy (POSS) has been developed and presented previously. As a basic idea, it allows to adjust the mass flow rate within a process window as a function of the frost line height and a constant process time. This flexibility enhances the use of the approach in practice which otherwise might be limited due to plant-specific or processing restrictions. For the recent study, a scale-down scenario with a scaling factor k=8, representing the ratio of the die diameters, is investigated. A series of experimental runs is carried out on a laboratory-scale blown film line under process-oriented conditions. Mechanical properties of film samples are measured and compared to the results from the corresponding industrial production process (> 800 kg/h). Furthermore, a comparison with a previous experimental study (k=10) is drawn in order to evaluate the reproducibility. All in all, the measured mechanical properties are in good accordance, so that the study confirms the feasibility of the approach. A detailed discussion of the procedure and the results will be presented.