EuroWire January 2025

Technology News

Aiming for energy efficiency when extruding Extrusion efficiency needs to be considered when producing wire, cable pipe and tube for infrastructure and transportation. The aim is to avoid unwanted waste. Yves Zweifel, R&D manager at Maillefer, explored this subject in a recent blog post on the company’s website, summarised below.

Maillefer can provide customers with in-house expertise for optimising the operation of their lines, along with the tools and know-how for independently taking control. With advanced automation, data acquisition and database management system, the owner of a Maillefer line can carry their own post production analysis. Depending on the measuring devices installed on the line, it is possible to not only understand the detailed use of electrical power, but also quantify associated utilities. Cooling is the second largest consumer of energy after the extrusion. The cooling method chosen also influences the quality of the desired product, the resulting cooling trough length required, factory layout limitations and overall line speed. The goal is to understand the unique constraints. As the extruded product reaches the end of the line, it must be dry before reaching the conditioning step (coiling, reeling or cutting). Often underestimated, the drying step quickly becomes a challenge as speed increases. By mastering the extrusion process, cooling and drying, Maillefer offers an overall view that best suits its customers’ operational needs. The company believes that extrusion optimisation, proper water-cooling techniques, emphasis on vacuum control and effective drying play key roles in the entire extrusion process. Maillefer www.maillefer.net

End users consider production efficiency, extended life cycle and intensive use in their entirety. As a result, production costs linked to energy expenditure have to be closely monitored in order to avoid unwanted waste. As a technology provider to the industry, Maillefer supports this industry change and is providing innovations to make it happen in a sustainable way. Sustainability is driven by several deliverables. Global use of materials is accelerating, and has more than tripled since 1970. Just nine per cent of the 92.8bn tons of material that enters the economy is re-used annually. Modern manufacturing techniques enable the manufacturing of sustainable wire, cable, pipe and tube products. The most efficient way to transform regular goods into green products is to focus on the manufacturing process. The direct electricity consumption of an extrusion line is relatively easy to calculate, but is not the only type of utility required to run a line. Other sources, such as cooling water or compressed air, must be taken into account when calculating the line’s operating cost. An extruder or extrusion group is generally the main consumer of energy, mainly through the mechanical effort provided. Heaters play a key role in process start-up and stability, but contribute little to the energy balance. The target is to optimise extruder motorisation and screw and barrel pairs to establish the best operating conditions. Composite clad metal wire for improved performance Anomet Products has introduced custom-manufactured clad metal wire that can be formulated to improve solid precious metal wire’s performance characteristics, such as corrosion resistance, conductivity and biocompatibility. Anomet Precious Metal Clad Wire can be formulated to achieve specific performance characteristics and is claimed to be functionally equivalent to solid wire at around one-tenth of the cost. Suited to high-reliability medical and electronics applications, it can achieve high conductivity, corrosion resistance, biocompatibility, radiopacity and high strength. Incorporating 2 per cent or more cladding thickness, the wire can replace solid platinum, silver, gold and gold alloy wires. Featuring a precious metal that is metallurgically bonded to a core such as copper, Kovar®, nickel-iron molybdenum, stainless steel, tantalum or titanium, the ductile wire is uniformly dense and will not crack or flake. Anomet Products www.anometproducts.com

ARRIVALs Landing at an exhibition near you…

AMI Cables 11th-13th March 2025 Düsseldorf, Germany

Stand: TBC

Global Industrie 11th-14th March 2025 Lyon, France

Stand: Press Stand

wire Eurasia 9th-12th April 2025 Istanbul, Turkey

Stand: TBC

Made in Steel 6th-8th May 2025 Milan, Italy

Stand: TBC

Lamiera 6th-9th May 2025 Milan, Italy

Stand: TBC

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January 2025