The world’s plastic’s elite descended onto the soils of Düsseldorf this past week for ‘K-Show’ – The industry’s triennial dose of what’s new and upcoming in the plastics and rubber materials and processing game.
As a consultant in the Injection moulding, tooling and design for manufacturing arena I was attending with the core purpose of keeping up to date with all things plastic.
This is a great event for anyone who wants to discover both new and emerging capabilities and those who want to identify the latest players are in plastic processing.
With over 3000 exhibitors and almost 1/4 million visitors its almost impossible to capture everything. However, there were multiple noteworthy developments in the industry, with one of the biggest being Arburg’s Freeformer.
Arburg have developed a machine and process that can produce plastic components without the use of a mould – using standard polymer granulates. This technology has been coined ‘Mouldless Moulding’.
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Similar in concept to 3D printing, Arburg’s freeformer builds components in layers. The resin is melted, separated into very small droplets (using piezo technology), and deposited in layers to build a plastic component from a 3D CAD file. Arburg claim that the strength of produced parts are approximately 70%-80% of that of an injection moulded plastic part. Other important factors with this machine include; 2 material builds (soft/rigid), geometric freedom with part design (no complex demoulding movements), no support material required.
The arrival of this technology is great news for product designers, developers, manufacturers and prototype shops alike. Allowing us to get closer than ever to actual moulded components without the tooling investment.
This machine is capable of producing 2 colour parts and can process hard and soft materials simultaneously. This is ideal for adding a soft touch feel to a product or including a functional sealing surface or feature.
This new technology really does break down some barriers for early stage product development, ultimately bringing faster innovation at a lower cost. Although the price of the machine is unknown at this time, Arburg have indicated that the process is efficient for small volume production.
At Cambridge Consultants discovering and developing new ways to reduce product development time is paramount to our product development offering and our client’s success.
