Details

January 2021

Ground-breaking project: 70 % rim thickness reduction

Is it possible to reduce the rim thickness of a plastic item by 70 percent without compromising on neither the quality nor the robustness of the item?

This is the challenge that Hjerno's plastics specialists have given themselves in two ongoing customer projects. And so far, it looks promising - thanks to, among other things, Hjerno's knowledge in advanced collapsible cores and special tools for 2K mouldings with the same raw material in both mouldings.

"Reducing rim thicknesses almost anywhere in a plastic item may require really advanced tools, and we can see that due to our many years of experience we can develop injection moulding tools that can reduce the rim thickness by more than 2/3," says Managing Director Aage Agergaard.

Unique products

The plastics industry as a whole has for many years made a major effort to reduce the industry's CO2 footprint - among other things through higher recycling rates, use of sustainable packaging, raw materials and so on.

And thanks to increasingly advanced manufacturing processes and skilled specialists, it is now also possible for Hjerno to reduce the rim thickness of the individual plastic items and thereby achieve large raw material savings.

“We are experiencing an increased demand for so-called extreme tools, where the tool itself and the individual parts are extremely advanced, because one does not want to compromise on neither quality nor robustness despite thinner material. Conversely, it provides large savings on raw material consumption and shorter cycle times as well as higher sales figures, because consumers want to buy sustainable and unique products,” explains Aage Agergaard.

Green trend breaks through

In general, he experiences that the plastics industry is willing to do its part to contribute to the green transition - for example by reducing the rim thicknesses considerably on the finished item, so that it really has an effect on the raw material savings.

"We are really noticing that this very interesting trend is having its breakthrough at the moment," says Aage Agergaard.

“Put at the forefront, we can say that in the past we as a tool factory were measured on how cheap and reliable we could manufacture a tool, and on how perfect the samples could be. Now we are also often measured on how we can contribute to reducing the customers' CO2 footprint. ”