Krah high-performance production plant KR800-MAX was successfully accepted - Pipe of DN/ID1000mm, SN8 was extruded with 1300kg/hr
KR800-MAX
In the course of a machine acceptance more than 20 international companies visited the little village Schutzbach in the Westerwald, Germany – where profiled pipe production plants have been successfully developed and produced for more than 30 years – and are subsequently put into operation by Krah Advanced Technologies GmbH – shortly KAT GmbH.
But with this new machine the self-defined performance target was clearly exceeded. The production performance has been steadily increased throughout the past years. This time the designers even impressed the management board and all customers / stakeholders, as it has been managed for the first time ever to produce a profiled pipe DN/ID1000mm, SN8 according to ISO9969 with bright, co-extruded inner layer incl. electro-fusion and spigot with a production output of up to 1300kg/hr. As acceptance material the HE3490LS and HE3492-LS-H from Borouge / Borealis were used for the inspection-friendly inner layer. The customers were extremely impressed when the whole pipe was finished in just a few minutes, including socket and spigot.
The extrusion heart of the new plant KR800-MAX consists of a KraussMaffei extruder 125x36D and a self-made co-extruder which was effectively included into the plant. Every extruder is equipped with a gravimeter for two components each. The in-house control system controls and visualizes the whole plant. The gas and energy consumption can be pursued precisely on screen.
In general the machine appeared very tidy and open for additions. Additions may include the development of other materials like reinforced ties or the production of square profiles. Generally round profiles are extruded since there have been a lot of optimizations in the past weeks / months to produce pipes in larger diameters even easier while simultaneously fulfilling the required stiffnesses. The maximum profile diameter is 110mm for round and 80mm for square profiles. There is a special profile for outfall and sea water intake line applications, which make the usage of such pipes for these applications even more cost-effective and save.
The customer will solely produce outfall pipes for the first 1.5 years which are connected to each other by an electro-fusion fitting.
Due to the new mass distribution valve the pipe endings are manufactured homogenously with only one die head – the second one will be opened at the required time – thus the start-up waste will be reduced to 5 kg besides the better quality and look.
Another feature of the plant KR800-MAX is the production of homogenous solid wall pipes with a wall thickness of up to 300mm – without any sagging problems and with the above-mentioned high production output. The plant can produce bi-directionally and has been equipped with a special, energy-saving IR-heating.
During the live demonstration the changing from a profiled pipe with SN8 to a homogenous solid wall pipe with a wall thickness of 30mm could be done in only 7 minutes.
Besides the high performance the control-, operating and evaluation software has been greatly exceeded, which is the effect of personnel increase of programmers. The production plant is able to measure, record and evaluate all direct costs like time, downtimes, gas, material and energy consumption. This can be done per kilo, pipe, day or month. The evaluations are directly shown on the machine or on smartphone and computer through the program “Pontis” – which is the “bridge” between plant and operator.
Via RFID chips and cards nearly all product-related dates can be measured and saved per pipe, which fulfils the demand for product traceability.
KR800-MAX - Profile 1
With this new production plant KR800-MAX the Krah technology is well prepared for the future and ready to stand against global copy-cats.
The customers were highly satisfied and 3 days later the plant was already dismantled and ready for dispatch to the customer in Near East, where it will highly efficiently produce pipes in about 2 months. The installation of such a plant lasts max. 10 working days and doesn’t need a fundament which makes the machine very “moveable” and can “follow” pipe projects.
Author:
Alexander Krah
CEO Krah Pipes GmbH & Co. KG,
Germany