CN
Refrigerators, Always a Cool Business!
INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS, RELIABLE E Q U I P M E N T A N D W O R L D W I D E COVERAGE: THESE ARE THE THREE MAJOR REASONS FOR CANNON SUCCESS IN REFRIGERATOR MANUFACTURING. WE HEAR FROM PIERO CORRADI, CORPORATE DIRECTOR PLASTICS DIVISION, AND ANDREA ORLANDINI, THE CANNON GLOBAL PRODUCT MANAGER IN CHARGE OF THIS STRATEGIC MARKET, WHICH ARE THE LATEST NEWS FOR THE COLD WHITE APPLIANCES FIELD.
Cannon News: The basic matters first: which are the c u r r e n t t r e n d s i n t h e refrigerators industry? Piero Corradi: Increase p r o d u c t iv i t y, o p t i m i s e insulation costs, reduce gas e m i s s i o n s, u s e o n l y environmentally-acceptable blowing agents. I could summarise all what the industry is looking for with these four targets.
CN: How is Cannon facing these requests? PC: Delivering innovative equipment and performing production methods, as we have done for the past 50 years. We must work hand-in-hand with the Raw Material Suppliers, because all the above needs are satisfied by an innovative chemistry. We can only design the tools that transform liquid formulations into high-quality foams in the best possible way.
CN: How is this chemistry evolving, then, and what is Cannon supplying to make it work efficiently? PC: Without detailing the strategies of each Raw Material Supplier that cooperates with us, we can resume the latest trends as follows:
· Increase the efficiency of the insulation media working on the size and shape of the foam cells,
· Optimise the use of chemicals, trying to achieve a more uniform distribution of foam density within the walls,
· Reduce the curing time of the foam using fastreacting formulations.
All the chemical leaders follow these three paths. There are now three types of formulations that can be taken in consideration to reach those targets:
· Microcellular foam cells, with diameter around 8-10 micron, that are under development using Aerogels and other innovative approaches. These foams might be industrially available in less than 3 years.
· Foams with small cells, with diameter around 100 micron, that are commonly available, are very reactive and thus require a very fast injection. They could already be used for a“ 100- second demoulding” goal.
· Conventional formulations, with 200 micron cells: they are the most economic, so far, but cannot provide a fast demoulding performance.
CN: What is Cannon doing for t h e s e t h r e e t y p e s o f formulations? PC: For the microcellular foam project Cannon Afros is the partner of Dow Italia, a l e a d i n g s c i e n c e a n d technology global company, and Whirlpool, the appliancewhite goods global company, in the LIFE + Project K-12, aiming to demonstrate and show-case an innovative refrigeration technology to significantly improve the energy efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of the Cold Appliance industry. The K-12 project connects n e w c h e m i s t r y w i t h technology innovations, avoiding any use of Green House Gases as blowing agents with a new appliance production technology driven by reducing the carbon footprint of manufacturing operations, addressing any technology requirements and regional needs. The 36-month project objective is to bring radical innovation to the manufacturing process of household appliances, insulated by a microcellular high-efficient Polyurethane foam able to achieve about 30 % reduction of thermal conductivity, thus significantly improve the energy consumption of refrigerators and freezers.
CN: A classic R & D project then, with mid-term expected results. How about today ' s requests for an increased productivity? PC: Since the chemical solution is a fast-reacting foam, the mechanical answer to that is a machine with higher output, to deliver several kilograms of liquid in very few seconds, and a combination of mixing heads able to fill in the most rational way the fridge ' s wall cavity. We provide 200-kg / min or larger high-pressure dosing units, connected with a new generation of mixing heads that provide a very laminar flow at high output rates. This generates a very homogeneous foam structure, free from air traps or voids. Our control allows for a double injection at different output in extremely fast sequence, closing only the tiniest of the internal chambers of the head. By playing with this possibility, and by splitting very precisely the flow of liquid components into two mixing heads we can supply a four-head injection configuration using only two metering machines. This reduces the investment budget, the operative and maintenance costs and the footprint of the dosing equipment in the plant.
CN: What is the Cannon answer to the production needs of a fridge manufacturer using conventional formulations? Andrea Orlandini: There are other tools that we can utilise to increase productivity, even for conventional foams. We can play on the dry side of the plant, speeding up operations to provide a faster part-to-part production cadence. This is true for both cabinet and door foaming equipment. We just released another innovative foaming system designed for customers requiring a compact industrial solution. It ' s derived from the famous Drum, that Cannon invented in the early 1980 ' s, has been manufactured in thousands of units … and has been made also by several competitors, when its Patent expired! The Drum is a rotating polymerisation machine that features a structure composed by several sides, from three to twelve, holding the moulds. These moulds have always been filled with foam when they are parallel to the floor, fixed horizontally on the sides of the structure. We have now developed another method for foaming the doors, the VertiDrum, where the foam rises vertically and the advantages are numerous:
· With only two units and a conventional rigid formulation two complete sets of doors can be extracted every 30 seconds: it ' s the
18