Technology and materials in the spotlight at Piovan

The Technological Innovation Forum (Seminario dell'Innovazione Tecnologica - SIT), organised by Piovan at its headquarters in Santa Maria di Sala (near Venice), took place on 11-12 September 2013. The event focused above all on the latest technologies developed by the Venetian manufacturer of ancillary equipment: Ryng, the new device to be installed under the hopper for monitoring production and tracking raw material batches; Digitemp, the thermo-refrigerator offering important advantages particularly when integrated in distributed refrigeration systems; and the Winfactory software, for monitoring production processes according to the type of batch.
However, the SIT Forum is not a self-referential event at all: besides the presentations by Piovan's engineers, two features attracted the interest of participants along with a number of questions: the Mucell microcellular physical foaming process and the induction mould heating technology by Moreno Carvani, sales director of the Proplast consortium, representing Trexel and RocTool in Italy products on show at the event.
Equally worthy of note were the reports presented by Matteo Ghiglia of Engel ("Energy efficiency of the injection moulding process in hydraulic, hybrid and electric injection moulding machines") and by Gaetano Lampugnani of Sabic, who discussed the pros and cons of some polycarbonate grades marketed under the Lexan brand, such as EXL, HFD, SLX and LUX, developed to solve different and specific application problems also in highly regulated sectors such as the aerospace and the rail transport industries.
At the end of each day, in a specially equipped area, it was possible (on both 11 and 12 September) to see live the injection moulding of plastic parts manufactured using the Mucell technology, on an Engel e-victory 120 hybrid tiebarless injection press featuring the energy-saving Ecodrive system, and the RocTool 3iTech induction heating system, on an Engel e-motion 100 all-electric press.
Giorgio Santella, marketing director of Piovan, commented: "SIT's goal is to keep our customers up to date explaining and showing them the latest technologies available on the global plastics market. Since these technologies are often so innovative that they become important cornerstones for the plastics processing world, Piovan aims to present them to all industry operators. As a result, during the SIT Furum, our company traditionally unveils technologies developed not only by Piovan, but also by other manufacturers who contribute to make the Forum a really awareness-rising event."