Nissei ASB to Showcase Zero Cooling Molding Technology at K 2019

“Zero Cooling” Provides a Revolutionary Increase in Quality, Productivity & Efficiency at K2019

Nissei ASB Machine Co., Ltd. (Head office: Komoro‐shi, Nagano‐ken, Japan ‐ President: Junichi Miyasaka), a world leading manufacture of machines and molds for injection stretch blow molding of PET and other plastics, will exhibit at the K2019 exhibition (Hall 14 / B38), to be held in Düsseldorf, Germany from 16th to 23rd October 2019.

The “K” exhibition retains its place as the world’s largest and most influential plastics exhibition, with the 2016 event seeing over 230,000 visitors with over 82% directly involved in purchasing decisions, Nissei ASB’s 712m2 booth will be making a strong impact with the target audience with live molding demonstrations of five ASB‐Series machines strongly showcasing ASB’s recently introduced “Zero Cooling” molding process.

Zero Cooling ‐ Patented Molding Technology

The major sectors of the PET container market that utilize one‐step injection stretch blow molding process are cosmetics, personal care, pharmaceutical, household and general food packaging, etc. where containers are more commonly designed for market appeal and brand quality, resulting in preform design that up to now has been a compromise between container quality and molding efficiency.

First announced in 2018, Zero Cooling ‐ ASB’s revolutionary advance in preform cooling technology ‐ perfectly suits the needs of these industries as it enables increased product quality at significantly shorter molding cycles than seen previously.

Taking full advantage of ASB’s proprietary 4‐station, 1‐step molding method, virtually all the required preform cooling is now shifted away from the injection station and into the second, conditioning station to dramatically reduce injection cycle times.

Crucially, the Zero Cooling molding method enables these short cycle times to be achieved while avoiding the need for thin, compromised design preforms that are susceptible to several quality related problems, most notably the undesirable “fisheye”, “body ring” and “orange peel”.

Now, with the preform designer able to freely focus on a shorter preform design with a thicker wall section that optimizes stretch ratios, the result is vastly improved quality as well as increased productivity.

Actual results from typical Zero Cooling molds have shown 15% or greater increase in stiffness and topload strength, improved control of material distribution and an average of 1.5 times productivity increases while improving on visual quality. Furthermore, since the container strength has now been improved by better orientation, more scope is available to apply additional light‐weighting to the container’s specification.

The advanced cooling method also enables the molding of heavyweight premium cosmetic containers in dramatically shortened cycle times exhibiting no haziness even when using standard, lower cost PET grades, rather than the higher priced specialized, low‐crystallization grades that are normally required. All this results in perfect visual quality while saving cost and boosting productivity by 2‐3 times over conventional molding of these glass‐like, premium designs.

Protecting Nature

The advantages of Zero Cooling not only benefits users of ASB equipment but also demonstrate ASB’s commitment to provide high quality molded products that help protect the natural environment.

• Increased productivity provided by Zero Cooling equipped molding systems
  reduces the overall energy consumption per bottle.
• Additional container strength provided by Zero Cooling allows further
  opportunities for weight reductions
• Two of the five machines on demonstration will be molding 100% R‐PET that fully
  confirms the ability of Zero Cooling to produce highest quality containers at high
  efficiency over a range of material specifications.

 

1. ASB-12M v2 1 -Step Injection Stretch Blow Molding Machine with Optional Take-Out Unit – Small Size with Vast Capability

The ASB‐12M has firmly established itself as a leader in the class of small, fully automated 1‐step stretch blow molding machines with its diminutive size belying its huge capabilities. Now in its Version 2 specification, the model brings even greater performance and utility to the table.

Most notable is the Vision1 control system that elevates the machine capabilities to a whole new level offering significant advantages to users;

• Response & communication speed is 2.5 times faster than dedicated PLC systems enhancing machine cycle efficiency and control precision.
• PC based system makes it extremely flexible in use and compatible with Industry 4.0 for enhanced factory networking.
• Larger, easy to read panel provides easier access to relevant information without changing pages.
• Most manual operation switches are replaced by touchscreen operation. Improved operator feedback improves troubleshooting response time and minimizes down‐time. Internal hard wiring is drastically reduced.
• Major machine functions can be added or updated via software installation only.
• Easier & faster service support.
• Standardized interface across the model range assists in operator training.

 

The revised ASB‐12M expands the capabilities for production of a vast range of PET containers, including highly efficient light‐weight bottles and wide mouthed jars, to the highest quality at low capital investment.

Key features include;

• Ability to process more than 20 resin types in addition to PET.
• Molds containers from 5ml or less all the way up to 2.5‐liters capacity.
• Variable cavitation for up to 15mm neck diameter bottles in eight cavities through to 83mm neck diameter jars in a single cavity.
• Servo driven hydraulic pumps installed as standard, contributing to major energy savings and offering smooth and extremely quiet operation.
• Backwardly compatible with existing class mold tooling with minimal modifications.
• Small size allows fast mold changeovers will minimal manpower, and minimal lifting equipment.

 

In addition, the model displayed at K2019 will be fitted with the optional IU‐10L long stroke injection unit that provides a 50% increase in available shot‐size, expanding the scope for large containers, heavy‐weight cosmetic bottles, or materials such as polypropylene having lower density.

All these benefits make it an ideal platform for a start‐up company looking to make future‐proof investments into an ever‐changing market, or for larger companies wishing to exploit niche markets where higher margins are to be found. With its full featured specification, it also makes an ideal laboratory machine for R&D work and pilot molding before committing to much larger multi‐cavity systems for major projects.

At K2019 this machine will be molding a 4‐cavity “family” mold featuring two separate premium grade, glass‐like cosmetic container designs of 80ml and 45ml fill capacity sharing a common preform design. Thanks to the use of Zero Cooling, the cycle has been reduced from a typical previous time of up to 40 seconds down to just 12.5 seconds to achieve greater than 3 times increase in productivity. Additionally, this revised cycle is being achieved using standard bottle grade PET – specialized, high‐priced slow crystallizing PET resin resins are completely unnecessary when Zero Cooling molding is employed.

2. ASB-12M v2 1 -Step Injection Stretch Blow Molding Machine with Optional Take-Out Unit – Ultimate Versatility

This mid‐range ASB‐70DPH model has been a favorite for over 30 years due to its economy, flexibility and convenient size – and due to regular technology updates, it has stayed at the forefront of 1‐step molding technology with class leading efficiency. With the ability to mold PET and up to 20 other resin types, combined with the capacity to mold up to 10‐liter capacity jars in a single cavity all the way through to sub‐100ml bottles in up to 12 cavities, it is little surprise that this model takes the “best‐seller” award on so many occasions.

The ASB‐70DPHv4 is a mid‐range one‐step injection stretch blow molding machine that offers extreme molding versatility in a “just‐right” size with competitive investment costs and low cost of ownership. It utilizes ASB’s renown 4‐station molding process to achieve optimum molding efficiency and stability of a wide range of molding materials.

It has remained a long‐term industry’s best seller in its class for a variety of reasons;

• Ability to process up to 20 resin types in addition to PET.
• Molds containers from 50ml or less all the way up to 10 liters’ capacity.
• Variable cavitation from 18mm neck diameter small bottles in 12 cavities through to 149mm neck diameter jars in a single cavity.
• With almost 2,500 units shipped, the design is well proven as solid and ultra reliable.
• A wide array of factory options allows buyers to tailor the machine to their own project‐specific needs.
• With no hydraulic components above the molding area the risk of product contamination is eliminated.

 

At the K2019 exhibition, this version 4 model will be demonstrated molding a 250ml cylindrical shampoo / cosmetic container at a cycle of 13.4 secs with 10 cavities producing over 2,600bph.

The demonstrated container design falls into a category that is often difficult to mold with perfect visual quality. Its small neck to body diameter ratio and a higher‐thannormal weight as per the client’s requirement for a “quality feel” would cause molding compromises with a standard mold. However, with the added benefits that Zero Cooling provides, not only is the productivity increased over a standard mold, the visual quality of the container becomes flawless.

3. ASB‐70DPH – Advanced Version

Although its external appearance is extremely similar to the standard version on display, the ASB‐70DPH Advanced Version has been fully re‐engineered to demonstrate a variety of techniques to achieve dramatically reduced indexing time that fully complements the Zero Cooling process and provides dramatically enhanced output, especially for smaller containers.

Key points being demonstrated on this concept machine include;

• Revised hydraulic circuit provides faster, smoother motion of clamping.
• Adjustable stroke in all clamping stations reduces machine indexing time for shorter preforms, while adjustable daylight also allows longer preforms, a feature especially useful for many non‐PET molding resins.
• Fully revised blow station reduces index time, simplifies blow mold changeover and reduces maintenance.
• Compatibility for existing ASB‐70DPH molds is maintained.
• Height adjustment system for injection unit reduces mold changeover times in high product mix molding scenarios.

With this Advanced Version machine giving a 40% reduction in indexing time, the demonstrated container using a short preform can be molded at up to 2.4 seconds faster than that achievable by a standard model. This saving is in addition to the reduced cycle time obtained from the use of Zero Cooling technology in the mold design. Combining the aforementioned machine revisions with ASB’s Zero Cooling mold technology, the 8‐cavity, single row mold producing a 30ml, 3.8gram, 19mm screw neck container for medical or toiletry use will cycle at 4.4 seconds to provide over 6,500bph.

4. ASB‐70DPW v4 ‐ High Output of Small Containers in Various Resins

The double‐row molding equivalent to the ASB‐70DPH is optimized for production of smaller bottles in molding configurations from 8 to 24 cavities for high productivity of containers up to 1‐liter capacity, and as with all ASB Series machines, the ASB‐70DPW is perfectly capable of molding a variety of non‐PET resins.

Assisting with energy saving, the servo hydraulic system provides power consumption savings of 30‐40% compared to the same mold and cycle time running in a conventional machine, while an optional blow air recycle system has the capability to take exhausted blowing air back into the machine system for air cylinder operation thus saving energy at the operation (low pressure) air compressor.

Now fitted as standard, an enhanced mold changing system in all stations permits drastic reductions in overall mold change time. For a blow mold change, just 30% of the previous time is required while for a total and complete preform and blow mold change, around 50% of the previous time is required.

At K2019, the machine will be molding an oval 300ml shampoo container in 14 cavities at a cycle time of 13.6 secs to generate over 3,700bph using a 100% recycled R‐PET.

5. ASB-70DPW v4 1-Step Injection Stretch Blow Molding Machine – High Scale Productivity of Bottles & Jars

The largest model on display is part of the ASB‐150 Series that operate using single, double or triple row molding. Despite being a high productivity machine for small to medium sized containers, the double row layout of the ASB‐150DPW also has the versatility to mold a wide variety of bottles and jars in PET and other resins, such as PP infusion bottles, to satisfy a wide range of users’ needs. Output is typically around 2.5 times that of the smaller ASB‐70DPW.

With its design based on the shared ASB‐150DP / ASB‐150DPX mechanical architecture, operation, maintenance and spare parts share many common features, thereby reducing total cost of ownership where its siblings are also in use. Energy consumption is maintained very low due to the adoption of standard variable displacement or optional servo driven hydraulic pumps.

The ASB‐150DPW is capable to mold containers from 1.5‐liter jars with 94mm necks to sub‐150ml bottles ranging from 8 to 36 cavities.

At K2019, the machine will be demonstrated molding a 900ml, 70mm neck diameter general food jar in 14 cavities. The adoption of Zero Cooling offering a cycle of 9.4 seconds means that productivity will exceed 5,300bph while molding outstandingly strong containers in 100% R‐PET

Additional Information

Each machine will be displayed with a full line of matched molding ancillary equipment that the company is able to supply, such as resin dryer, chiller, mold dehumidifier and mold temperature controllers, take‐out units etc.

ASB’s booth will also be exhibiting an exciting range of developments and packaging technologies including two‐layer bottles, canted/tilted neck bottles, polycarbonate 5 gallon with blown handle, double wall cup, HDPE bottles by ISBM, thick wall / base cosmetic bottles, etc.