Sustainability
Efficient mold cooling for best energy efficiency
| Petra Rehmet
Orca temperature control system ensures optimum heat exchange
In injection molding, mold cooling is a critical factor for component quality and cycle time—and it is energy-intensive. Sometimes, however, it pays off to accept a slightly higher level of energy consumption per hour in order to decrease it per part produced. For example, when using the Orca temperature control system.
Unlike a conventional water distributor, Orca temperature control system uses ultrasound to measure the flow velocity and quantity. This takes place from the outside and without making contact with the medium. As a result, the Orca distributor block does not have any cross-section narrowing, meaning fewer pressure losses. Energy efficiency is improved, the cycle time drops and the quantity produced per hour is boosted.
This is the case, for example, at one of the three largest automotive component suppliers in Germany. The KraussMaffei customer uses the Orca temperature control system and thus could decrease the cycle time for bumper production by a whole seven percent.
Because the injection molding machine plasticizes more quickly and the tempering units have to discharge a larger quantity of cooling water, the energy consumption per hour increased by just under five percent, but dropped by 0.17 of a kilowatt-hour per component.
"At a production rate of 270,000 components per year and a current electricity price of EUR 0.12 per kilowatt-hour, this soon provides savings of EUR 5,508 per year."
Additional benefits are that the Orca system is maintenance-free and intuitive to use. It performs measurements without contact and can store hundreds of tool data records. This reduces scrap and increases process control. It can be delivered either as a stand-alone system or as a solution fully integrated into the MC6 control system from KraussMaffei. Thus it offers the ideal solution for making processes even more transparent and resource-conserving.
Because less is more - Learn more about KraussMaffei solutions that help you to improve your energy efficiency and sensibly conserve resources in our series "energy efficiency".