Infra-red emitters clean up plastic burrs
A
Heraeus Noblelight product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Sep 19, 2006
Specially contoured infra-red emitters for deburring plastic components are part of the comprehensive product portfolio offered by Heraeus Noblelight.
Extensive tests at the Heraeus Noblelight Applications Centre in Hanau, Germany, have demonstrated the effectiveness of infra-red radiation in the removal of burrs from plastic injection moulded components.
By using specifically contoured infra-red emitters, it has been shown that deburring can be carried out in-line, consistently and quickly, without any mechanical detriment to the product.
Sharp burrs can often be left on plastic components after injection moulding or pressing, especially at the tool separation plane.
Conventionally, these are removed mechanically using special knives or are burned off using gas flames.
Neither of these techniques produces consistent results and both are time-consuming.
Infra-red deburring relies on the application of infra-red heat by means of precisely contoured infra-red emitters.
This entails first of all producing a quartz glass body within a mould which matches the contour to be deburred and then introducing a suitable heating filament.
Short wave emitters are particularly suitable for this application and typical emitter powers can be 30 to 40W/cm, in round tubes with gold plated reflector slots.
Essentially, the focused infra-red heat causes the small amount of plastic material of the burr to melt and dissipate back into the material body, without running off or burning.
Larger burrs should first be optimised using mechanical tools before the thermal deburring is carried out.
The research at the Applications Centre demonstrated that successful deburring very much depends on the plastic itself.
For example, thermoplastics such as polyethylene (PE) and acrynitril-butadien-styrol (ABS), which are easily re-heated, are ideal for thermal deburring.
Other materials which are particularly suitable include polymethylmetacrylate (PMMA) and ethylene-propylene-dien-monomer (synthetic rubber) and it has been shown that black absorbs infra-red radiation faster and more efficiently than white or transparent materials.
However duraplastics such as phenolformaldehide and UP resins do not lend themselves to the technique.
Similarly, plastics with additives or filler materials, such as glass fibre, which are used for rigid tanks or containers, are also unsuitable as the fibres remain behind when the plastic has melted.
Infra-red deburring modules can easily be integrated within new production lines and retrofitted within existing systems.
They will find particular application in the automotive sector for faster, inline deburring of a wide range of plastic parts and claddings to ensure improved quality and reduced reject rates.
Specially contoured infra-red emitters for deburring plastic components are part of the comprehensive product portfolio offered by Heraeus Noblelight.
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