The speed of the new Fiberex extruder has increased tenfold since three years ago

The speed of the new Fiberex extruder has increased tenfold since three years ago

Cincinnati Extrusion has claimed a tenfold increase in the line speed of its Fiberex wood conical twin screw extrusion line, and a cut in materials costs by 40%, since its launch at the K2001 fair.

The Fiberex T58 unit that will be on display at K2004 will have output of 120 kg/h and an “industrially usable” line speed of 3 metres/min as a result of innovative cooling and calibration technology, the company claimed.

Some 40% saving in material costs has been achieved by introducing wood fibre powder together with other components directly into the extruder by gravimetric feeding, eliminating the need to make compound in granulate form in a separate compounding process.

While the major market for such composites in the important USA market is mainly exterior decking panels, Cincinnati Extrusion managing director Walter Hдder said the applications being developed in Asia and Europe were more sophisticated profiles typically used in interior housing applications.

Looking ahead to K2004, Cincinnati Extrusion marketing director Hans Berlisq told PRW.com the company expects to show a wood composite window at the fair. He added that he saw better prospects for wood composites made with synthetic polymers than those made with naturally re-occurring materials such as starch-bound wood fibre products.

He admitted that it may have been an error to have concentrated marketing efforts so far on plastics processors. Cincinnati is now targeting wood profile makers to show the advantages of extruded wood composites over traditional machining of wooden profiles.