subject: Various Techniques Of Extrusion: It's Applications, Advantages & Disadvantages And Various Tools & M [print this page] The process of extrusion has lots of types, and one of them is known as plastic extrusion. In this technique, raw plastic is used and transformed to produce many things like rods, seals, plastic tubing, adhesive tape and plastic sheets by using equipments like plastic extruders.
A few of the mostly used plastic items in plastic extrusion are nylon, polycarbonate, acetal, polyethylene, ABS or acrylonitrile butadiene styrene & acrylic.
What are the types of plastic extrusion?
1. Blown film extrusion
This technique is used when you wish to manufacture plastic films to create shopping bags and objects like that. It is normally similar to an ordinary extrusion except for the die. In this process, the die used is like an upright cylinder that has a round opening that can be as little as a couple of centimeters in diameter to as large as at least three meters. One benefit of this process is the quality variations it can offer.
2. Sheet or film extrusion
In this technique, the materials are cooled by pulling them through a number of cooling rolls. They are also able to achieve the desired surface texture and sheet thickness via this method. A method that follows this particular extrusion method is referred to as thermoforming, in which a sheet is exposed to heat until it turns into soft plastic so you can mold it into any shape. But, if you're gonna use vacuum when doing this, the method is generally known as vacuum forming.
3. Tubing extrusion
In this technique, plastic extruders are used to create tubes such as medical tubing and drinking straws. It is also similar to standard extrusion except for the die. In this instance, a mandrel or pin is used to extrude hollow areas. You can use one or several die depending on the number of lumens or holes needed.
4. Compound extrusion
This method uses one or a mixture of many polymers to make plastic compounds. You might use powder, liquid or pellets as feeds for injection molding and extrusion. Machinery are very helpful if you decide to use this process. You may get those small laboratory machines or those huge extruders found in large industries.
Those are just four of the numerous extrusion processes known nowadays. They've developed and enhanced over the years. Each of them has its own pros and cons over the others. Each also requires different sorts of tools.
