Krauss Maffei Extrusion of Munich Germany, a world leader in plastics machinery is a popular choice for extrusion machinery among pipe manufacturers around the world. With the production trend moving away from single –layer standard pipe and towards multilayer pipe with extra functional layers, Krauss Maffei are offering innovative concepts that provide improved production processes as well as cost savings.
Turkey’s largest pipe producer, Pakpen Plastik Boru ve Yapi, have a number of extrusion lines supplied by Krauss Maffei, to produce PP-R fiber-composite pipe, which has many uses including the supply of hot water. Three –layer PP-R fiber-composite pipe has some clear advantages over conventional hot water pipe: the hot water passing through them results in only minimal longitudinal expansion, making the pipes easier to lay, because the installer does not need to allow for expansion, when selecting connecting fittings. The extra stiffness of the PP-R fiber-composite pipe means that the fixing clips can be spaced further apart compared to unfilled PP-R pipe.
Three layer foamcore PP pipe used in domestic applications has weight and cost advantages over single layer compact PP pipe with the same dimensions and ring stiffness. The lower density of the foam layer can result in raw material savings of over 20% compared with compact pipe. As raw material can account for as much as 90% of the total manufacturing cost of plastic pipe, this saving is quite significant.
Russian pipe producers Politek Pt and Politron, and Estonian producer Gallaplast are among other companies that are using Krauss Maffei extrusion lines, headed by a single screw extruder from the 36D series with multilayer tooling and material specific calibration and cooling systems, for their production of pipes.