Plastics, Process & Lap Equipment
Plastic manufacturing machinery cooling
A water chiller is used in plastics manufacturing to dissipate heat in dies and moulds by running chilled water through them in a loop system. This allows companies to increase quality and maintain production volumes in all weather. Companies can even increase production substantially. For example, when the engineers at Summit Industrial built chillers for the Coca Cola Amatil PET production plant, the dies were cooled so quickly that production volumes increased by as much as 100% due to decreased cycle times. An additional chiller and air handler had to be built to reduce the humidity and sweating on the system.
Plastics extrusion companies can also benefit from a water chiller. Regulating temperatures in extrusion machinery allows a greater uniformity of product thickness, meaning less wastage and re-shredding. At one customer site alone, Summit Industrial Chillers estimated a saving of 25 employees hours per week could be achieved by installing a water chiller and reducing the time dedicated to shredding. The added benefit of using a chiller over cooling towers or town water is the minimal wastage due to evaporation or water ‘down the drain’ as chillers from Summit Industrial operate on a closed loop system.
Hydraulic oil cooling
Hydraulic oil cooling is required for applications like plastics manufacturing machinery and mining crushers. Hydraulic oil cooling has the unique requirement in that the oil must be able to warm to operating temperature, and then must be regulated to a close control temperature without over cooling or over heating. Summit Industrial Chillers industrial water chillers incorporate controls which prevent chillers from operating below start temperature and then allow the chiller to maintain the cooling water at optimum temperature. Chillers can be incorporated with integrated tanks and pumps and can be configured with multiple refrigeration systems for lead lag and redundancy, reducing the incidence of downtime for maintenance.
Pharmaceutical chillers
A water chiller can be used to dissipate heat from jacketed vats of creams and emollients before packaging. Optimal ingredient mixing temperatures are often high, typically 60-90 deg C. When a batch is finished mixing, chilled water is circulated through the outside of the jacketed mixing tank to quickly cool the batch so it can be packaged. The faster the cooling, the faster the packaging, and the more production from the plant. Summit Industrial is currently working with a customer who estimates that by using a process water chiller they will be able to decrease batch processing times to neatly fit within one 8 hour shift. By purchasing an industrial chiller they will save substantially on overtime costs.
Lab and research chillers
Summit Industrial Chillers can provide accurate close temperature control to cool condensate, regulate processes like fermentation, or cool other lab processes. The Cadet Series lab chiller is compact, can be located indoors or outdoors, and is fitted with a manual ‘water make-up so it can be installed where mains water is not available. The Cadet Series lab chiller contains a 6 litre integrated water tank, refrigeration system including compressor and fan, and circulating chilled water pump.
Laser chillers
Laser are used for a variety of industrial applications including plastics cutting, and due to the heat that is built up during this process, chillers required for cooling lasers often have specialist requirements. This includes very close temperature control on the chilled water, and sometimes there is a a need for de-ionised water which requires no mixed metals in the water system. An industrial chiller from Summit Industrial Chillers can accommodate these requirements to keep your laser machinery operating smoothly.
