PETpla.net Insider 08 / 2017

10 NEWS PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 08/17 www.petpla.net R&D/Leverage introduces the Liberty IBM System When R&D/Leverage began building tooling for the injection blow mould (IBM) market, they found the opportunity to make improvements to the traditional design of injection blow tools. The company set out to identify and resolve problems related to traditional injection blow tooling. The result is the Liberty IBM System. It uses patented technol- ogy to provide effective solutions to the challenges of conventional injection blow moulding. “The reason we became so interested in improving the IBM tooling is that when we got into the IBM tool- ing business we recognised there were many problems inherent in the traditional design that were not conducive to cost-effective manufacturing and productivity that today’s injection blow moulders need to be competitive in their markets. Because of these design problems in IBM, especially for the start-up of the run, it was very labour intensive,” says Jeff Chen, Director of Research & Simula- tion at R&D/Leverage. “Now, after much research, development and testing we have a proven IBM tool that really works.” Some of the problems inherent in a conventionally-designed injection blow mould tool that the Liberty IBM System solves are:  eliminates the ill effect of thermal expansion related problems like bowing of the die-set  enables the process technicians to do “cold starts” without having to torch the nozzles  minimises thermal expansion induced wear at the nozzle tip and gate area, which also eliminates frequent replace- ment of the nozzle  eliminates the need to engage and disengage the manifold from the injection cavity for startup and shutdown  a high degree of manifold balance can be easily achieved  minimise temperature bleed over between neck insert and cavity  offers a solution for the galling and wear of traditional bottom mould retract components by utilising a unique retract system  minimises parting line mismatch The responsibility to make the product easy to process is with the person designing the preform, and the key to their being able to do that is in applying consistent standards to the preform and tool design, which the technician processes under strict guidelines during single cavity development. This way the moulder can ensure going into production without delays. “Through thermal isolation in our Liberty IBM System, we can achieve appropriate process temperatures without having to excessively run the thermolator only to achieve a lesser result,” Wardlow adds. “With superior isolation in those areas you can achieve appropriate temperatures easier and without as much strain on your equipment. A thermolator is expensive to operate and requires a lot of maintenance, so the Liberty IBM System reduces maintenance costs”. R&D/Leverage currently has 16 Liberty IBM Systems run- ning in the field with cavitation as high as 38 cavities. “The higher cavitation tools will have the highest return for our customers based on ease of start-up and tool maintenance,” comments Wardlow. www.rdleverage.com Coca-Cola European Partners doubles amount of rPET Coca-Cola European Partners has unveiled its new UK sustainable packaging strategy – setting out an ambition for its GB business unit to work with local and national partners to recover all its packaging so that more is recycled and none ends up as litter. Plans envisage doubling the amount of recycled plastic in every one of its PET bottles over the next three years – from the current average of 25% to 50% by 2020. To achieve this target it will continue its long term partnership with Clean Tech, which operates Europe’s largest plastic bottle reprocessing facility in Lincolnshire, supporting the circular economy in Great Britain and allowing recycled bottles to return to shop shelves as part of new packs in as little as six weeks. As part of the new strategy, Coca-Cola will launch a campaign to inspire more consumers to recycle and will continue to work in partnership with others – including the Governments of Great Britain – to improve the current packaging recycling system. www.ccep.com