Extrusion Lines for PE & PP Foam / Foam Machines for expanded closed cell materials

Fast Start, Stable Process, Precise Control

FAP presents the most flexible extruders in the market "Made in Italy", allow covering a whole range of foam productions with a single machine. FAP offers a wide range of technical high quality Polyethylene (EPE) and Polypropylene (EPP) foam extruders that allow to satisfy all production requests, ensures foam productions from 100 to 1200 kg/h with densities from 15 to 400 kg/m³ and for sheet thicknesses of Polyethylene (EPE) foam from 0,5 to 30 mm and Polypropylene (EPP) foam from 1 to 10 mm.

High thickness ultra low density polyethylene PE foam produced on FAP extruder

Foam extruder for different densities and thickness

Competitive advantages of FAP twin-screw extrusion technology

When deciding to invest in the production of polyethylene (EPE) and polypropylene (EPP) foam, it is important to understand: What materials do you want to produce on foam extrusion line?

What physical and mechanical characteristics should materials polyethylene (EPE) and/or polypropylene (EPP) foam have?
How to achieve low production costs without reducing the quality characteristics of the foam material?
In which markets are you planning to enter?
Will you be competitive in these markets with your foam products?

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Where we will give some examples of the competitive advantage of FAP foam extrusion lines with counter-rotating technology.

twin screw counter rotating foam Extrusion line

Internal workshop for production of parts

high foam thickness production on FAP extrsuion line

The Main Advantages

Intelligent dosing system

Accuracy and range of each dispenser is 0,3% of the total output.
Each dispenser is independent and feeds raw materials into the extruder funnel using a separate motor and screw. This allows to stop feeding any component into the extruder immediately after stopping the dispenser (doser); changing the nucleator or dye during the production process takes no more than 7 minutes.
Smart dosing control system, which signals the operator about any deviation from the given recipe, giving both a light and a sound signal.
Special vacuum pump integrated in dosing station. Each dispenser automatically pumps raw materials into a storage hopper.

Twin-screw technology

The twin-screw FAP extrusion technology ensures uniform melt and mechanical mixing of the polymer by grinding of material at the screw contact point. This positively affects technological factors such as:

Reduces friction during the melting process and decreases the surface tension of the melt, which has a significantly better effect on the characteristics of the finished foam material, such as cell wall thickness and density, reduces % residual deformation in compression, and increases the dynamic modulus of elasticity of polyethylene and polypropylene foams under load.
Significantly improves the process of mixing in the melt of various components, such as dye concentrates, nucleators, sliding agents, flame retardants and others, which significantly reduces the time for changes in the recipe during foam production and reduces the amount of technological waste production. As example the average time for complete mixing of colorant with the melt is no more than 7 minutes, respectively, and any technological adjustments made by the operator of the line in the production process, noticeable in no more than 5-7 minutes.
There are no localized points of overheated polymer mixture because FAP's counter-rotating screw technology ensures that the melt is constantly turning, which contributes to more uniform cooling and stable behavior of the foamed polymer during degassing, minimizing the risks of overexpansion or cell collapse of the finished foam material.

advantages of twin screw counter rotating foam extruder

Extrusion heads (dies) for thin & thick thicknesses

The exclusive and original designing of extrusion heads has been studied by FAP for excellent control of the material and its distribution inside before the exit.

Cooling and Winding

The product comes out from the extruder as a tubular film, then by the rotation knife cut the film longitudinally in the inferior part. After, the foam material sprawls and cools on the supporting system to be winded in reels.
Just produced expanded film (foam) is still “alive” even when it is already formed on the reel.

Winding system

FAP has studied a specific reeling system “Soft Winding” which permits to have a full controlled tension among the reel coils, to obtain the same thickness of the internal and external spires of the roll controlling the post expansion and helping the right stabilization of the material.

The unique capabilities of the FAP Soft Wind system provides “full development” or correct post degasation of thin and thick foams;
100% Automated Cutting System of thin and thick foams;
the Most Modern Safety systems.

The foam winders are Universal and can be installed on any foam production line

The automation of FAP foam extrusion lines can be implemented in modular way and allows you to:

visualize the progress of the production process in real time;
receive control alerts;
operate with automatic winding systems with soft winding technology;
take advantage of systems for the automatic removal of the roll from the rod and for the automatic application of glue to the core.

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