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The Big Stretch: Testing ‘’K Value’’ for ‘’Creep Behaviour’’

Skyrocketing energy costs in recent years have put a lot of companies in a squeeze, especially the most energy-intensive ones. Among them, window profile producers and others using extrusion processes.

Cross-Box is a new vacuum supply system for PVC profile extrusion lines which has been developed by the Austrian company Politsch Kunststofftechnik GmbH. It provides energy savings of up to 85 % compared to a traditional calibration system. This means each production line could earn from €10.000 up to € 20.000 in energy savings.

There's a new weapon in the battle against landfill overflow. Weidner Ibérica, the Spanish subsidiary of the German firm Weidner, found a solution for some of the toughest materials to recycle: used electrical cables coated with flexible PVC.

The key? Just float it.

''The R-PVC we use is the 'heavy fraction' of the plastic cable waste, separated from the “light fraction” just by floating it in water,'' says Laura Lapuente, Weidner Iberica's director. ''It's as easy as that!''

Puff pastry is hardly what comes to mind when thinking about strengthening high-pressure PVC water pipes. But there you have it. Researchers thinking like bakers have been able to develop an innovative way to improve the mechanical behaviour of PVC.

The dilemma Sirci Gresintex sought to crack: how to increase the physical strength and impact resistance of the material without using chemicals. Very often, improving one property will reduce another and the use of additives is generally more costly than plain PVC.