A journey through time into the future of injection moulding - 2,700 guests attend ENGEL Symposium 2012

With 18 exhibits from the Automotive, Technical Moulding, Teletronics, Packaging and Medical business units, ENGEL established another world record at the Symposium 2012: the innovation density was once again greater than at previous events. For example, this was the first time that ENGEL demonstrated the Dolphin process for manufacturing premium automobile interior parts with a 'Softtouch' surface at its large-scale machine factory in St. Valentin; the first series production application had not been launched until autumn last year. More than anything else, the size of the ENGEL duo 1500 combi M injection moulding machine and its high degree of automation and process integration impressed the visitors.

No less impressive was the production of extremely thin-walled and at the same time highly decorated laptop covers in a clean room, the high degree of integration offered by a production cell for manufacturing lamp housings including a bead seal on a minimal footprint, and the two-metre tall mould for manufacturing wringing forks for floor mops using the ENGEL gasmelt process, which can be implemented on a comparatively small ENGEL victory injection moulding machine with a clamping force of just 500 tonnes thanks to the use of tie-bar-less technology.

The fact that the exhibits were on display directly next door to ongoing production at the same time gave visitors insights into the production of the ENGEL duo large-scale machines.

World firsts and live development

Two machine types celebrated their first airing at the Symposium: the electrified variant of the ENGEL duo large-scale machine, ENGEL e-duo, and the new, all-electric ENGEL e-mac injection moulding machine for maximum precision requirements in technical moulding. This was topped off by "development live": ENGEL gave visitors a peek into the future of automotive lightweight construction in the production of brake pedals using an innovative in- situ polymerisation technology on a prototype machine.

Morning keynote presentations at the Symposium, which was held at the Design Center in Linz, focused on improvements to the injection molding process chain. Topics covered during the talks were process improvements in plasticizing, mixing and cooling, new possibilities in process control, energy efficiency of innovative drive concepts as well as lightweight construction technologies. Among others, Georg Steinbichler and Gerhard Dimmler who head-up Research and Development for ENGEL, as well as Peter Egger, the head of ENGEL's new technology center for lightweight composites in St. Valentin, gave presentations during the event. ENGEL's goal with this technology centre is to intensify cooperation on developing composite fibre technologies with partners

Partner exhibition underlines huge demand for turnkey solutions

40 ENGEL system partners from the fields of raw materials, mould making and temperature control technology, automation, pellet handling, quality assurance and clean room technology backed up the main exhibits with their products and solutions, thus underlining the huge turnkey solution competency that ENGEL guarantees -- not just at the tri-annual Symposium, but day by day in demanding customer projects in collaboration with ENGEL partners.

Exhibition and partner fair while production operations continue at the ENGEL large-scale machine works in St. Valentin: 2,700 visitors experienced state of the art and, above all, future opportunities in injection moulding technology.

Pictures: ENGEL AUSTRIA