Method for continuously manufacturing UHMWPE products
AssigneeTekalen Holding Verwaltungs GmbH
InventorsRobert Marc Fifield, Guido Terbrack
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention relates to a method for continuously manufacturing UHMWPE products comprising:—providing a counter-rotating twin-screw extruder;—feeding UHMWPE powder into a hopper of said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder;—transporting said UHMWPE powder from said hopper through said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder to an outlet of said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder;—further transporting said UHMWPE powder from said outlet of said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder to an entrance of a heat-controlled tooling system for defining the shape of UHMWPE products;—withdrawing said UHMWPE products from an outlet of said heat-controlled tooling system.
Claims10
A method for continuously manufacturing ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) products comprising:
- providing a counter-rotating twin-screw extruder;
- feeding UHMWPE material in a powder form into a hopper of said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder, wherein a temperature in the counter-rotating twin-screw extruder is <=Tm (melting temperature);
- transporting said UHMWPE material in the powder form from said hopper through said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder to an outlet of said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder;
- further transporting said UHMWPE material in the powder form from said outlet of said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder to an entrance of a heat-controlled tooling system for defining a shape of UHMWPE products, wherein said UHMWPE material in the powder form is brought into a molten state in said heat-controlled tooling system, and wherein said entrance of said heat-controlled tooling system comprises increasing conical or trapezoid lands;
- withdrawing said UHMWPE products from an outlet of said heat-controlled tooling system.
A method for continuously manufacturing ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) products comprising:
- providing a counter-rotating twin-screw extruder;
- feeding UHMWPE material in a powder form into a hopper of said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder, wherein a temperature in said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder is <=Tm (melting temperature);
- transporting said UHMWPE material in the powder form from said hopper through said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder to an outlet of said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder;
- further transporting said UHMWPE material in the powder form from said outlet of said counter-rotating twin-screw extruder to an entrance of a heat-controlled tooling system, wherein said UHMWPE material in the powder form is brought into a molten state in said heat-controlled tooling system for defining a shape of UHMWPE products;
- withdrawing said UHMWPE products from an outlet of said heat-controlled tooling system
- wherein said entrance of said heat-controlled tooling system comprises increasing conical or trapezoid lands;
- and
- wherein said heat-controlled tooling system comprises different temperature zones along the length of said heat-controlled tooling system.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.