Rotoflex

Innovative Rotomoulding Development to Improve Cycle Times and Process Efficiency whilst Facilitating Greater Flexibility in Product Design and Integrity for the SME-Rotomoulding Sector

The objective of RotoFlex is to advance the competitiveness of the European SME-rotational moulding sector through:

• Development of an automatic feed system that can be retrofitted to standard rotomoulding machines that will confer 30% reductions in cycle time, with 30% energy savings.
• Quantification of the rotomoulding process through the use of simulation software, leading to improved process understanding, control, and product quality.
• Development of processes using the automatic feed system to make advanced composite and multilayer products.
• Using the automatic feed system to deliver controlled internal mould pressurisation facilitating the use of engineering resins and sustainable resins for value added products.

Organisational Information

Budget: €1.7M
Funding: €1.3M
Start Date: January 2009
Finish Date: December 2011
Duration (in months): 24
Lead Partner (Co-ordinator) Smithers Rapra, UK

Participants

Results – What happened next?

The project is half way through its three-year funding period and signifi cant progress has been made in relation to its key objectives.

Activities at Smithers Rapra have focused on powder flow, and innovative methods for transferring the powder into the rotational mould, ideally in a pre-conditioned state. Materials characterisation has also been undertaken on a range of candidate materials, and this will feed into the modelling and simulation work which Smithers Rapra is also carrying out. The aim is to predict areas of shrinkage and signifi cant stress from a model so that these can be designed out or minimised prior to the moulding going into production. Initial validation work is being undertaken with the test moulds used by the other partners.

Queen’s University Belfast has been active over the last 18 months designing and developing an automated material feed / filling system. A full scale prototype feeding system has been constructed and is fully incorporated into one of the University’s rotomoulding machines. The system facilitates the precise positioning and stopping of a mould to a pre-determined point, thus enabling the accurate dosing of powders, fillers, etc directly to the mould, whilst it remains inside the oven. This will enable the production of reinforced and multilayer parts, with greater control and reduced processing cycle times.

Additional research at Queen’s has focused on experimentally assessing this new technology and developing it to make multi-material/multi-layered mouldings. Signifi cant progress has also been made at the University of Minho, who have produced rotationally-moulded samples using various processing conditions. The samples were characterised in terms of morphology, mechanical properties (tensile and impact tests) and shrinkage (using a 3D Measuring machine). The results obtained will provide the baseline data for comparison with the results obtained with the RotoFlex system developed at Queen’s University Belfast.

Project website: http://www.rotoflex-eu.org