Awards highlight thermoforming advances

Photo by RPC Bebo Winner of the SPE ETD food packaging category award: RPC Bebo produces the Veggiefresh margarine pack tub and lid in the IML-T process

At the sixth thermoformed parts competition held by SPE’s European Thermoforming Division, RPC Bebo Plastik, based in Germany, received the thin gauge food packaging award for the rectangular Veggiefresh IML-T margarine tubs and lids in PP. Jürgen Merbach of RPC Bebo Plastik said these went into production in April 2016.

The jury praised the application for premium tub and lid decoration with a 5-sided label used for tub sidewalls and bottom, and its utilisation of existing tools. The jury said this is “the way to beat injection moulding in high volume in-mould labelled tubs and lids”.

Bebo says IML-T for lids allows more precise label positioning than off?mould labelling, and that the same tooling can produce different lid weights.

In the heavy gauge vehicle/automotive category, Technoplast Industries, France, was awarded for the double-skin engine hood on the Manitou Maniscopic forklift handling vehicle. ABS/PMMA is used for the aesthetic outer surface and 15% glass fibre reinforced PA6 for the inner side. The GF-PA6 provides additional stiffness and chemical resistance against media to which the inner side is exposed.

Walter Pack, Spain, won the thin gauge vehicle/automotive award for a back-lit day&night effect door interior trim, thermoformed at high 100bar pressure with a 10-layer PC foil printed with multiple ink layers. The final complete trim part is obtained after UV curing by back injection moulding. Walther Pack had also submitted an emergency window for coaches.

Formplast in Sweden was awarded the heavy-gauge building award for the 1,000 x 1,500mm UV-stabilised PC roof dome it produces for Velux, on account of achieving high optical quality in normal positive thermoforming.

Among other parts submitted and displayed, two had already received innovation awards elsewhere. One of was the Champagne Pack from Top Clean Packaging in France, an item that won a “best design for end-of-life” category award in January at the first European Plastics Awards, arranged jointly by PlasticsEurope and SPE.

Aside from transport protection, the blue HDPE nesting pack can be used for bottle shelving. It extends the established Lo-G bottle packaging that won a thin gauge award at the 2014 SPE ETD parts competition for Protective Packaging Systems. Top Clean Packaging thermoforms the Champagne Pack in its Cartolux-Thiers, France, and Cartolux-Suzhou, China, plants.

A PVC medical diagnostic machine air cooling duct, displayed at SPE’s Sitges conference, is twin-sheet thermoformed by US company Profile Plastics in Lake Bluff, Illinois. It won a 2015 SPE gold thermoforming award in the US.

The part is thermoformed in 3.2mm thick Sekisui SPI Kydex T PVC sheet as left and right parts in temperature-controlled, machined aluminium, 2-cavity, female moulds to form each twin-sheet duct. The complex 3D close tolerance shape involves an inside?pinch design, makes full utilisation of restricted interior space and integrates a formed?in attachment flange.

Among other exhibits displayed in Sitges was an unusual Twister cup with a twisted shape that has been thermoformed by Jema MC, and the latest version of Cifra’s paint trays with removable layers for easy cleaning.