THE
COMPANY
TECAR S.p.A is a small
sized Italian company located at Varese producing natural
and synthetic rubber technical items used in agricultural,
building construction, nautical, heavy traffic transportation,
spare time and civil plant sectors.
Production can be divided into three main lines: continuous
vulcanised profile extrusion processing, injection moulding
and product finishing process.
Vulcanised profiles production is approx. 2100 t/year:
about 50% of the total amount is small dimensions profiles,
average linear weight 100 g/m, 30% medium dimensions-200
g/m, and 20% big dimensions-500 g/m.
The factory works five days a week on two daily shifts
which adds up to approx. 4000 h/year.
The total electric energy ad gas consumption are about
1600 Mwh/year and 9400 Sm3/year methane gas (used only
for building hating).
(
TECAR S.p.A Via Dalmanzia 55, 22100 Varese )
THE
PROBLEM
A fundamental factor
is rubber profiles commercial use in the product surface
appearance: other important factors are elasticity product
features, mechanical resistance and solubility in material's
solvents.
TECAR has paid particular attention to the above-mentioned
aspects in order to be always competitive on the market.
Vulcanization process is particularly important in rubber
profile production, heat plays a primary role in the
above-mentioned process and product physical features
and external surface appearance are determined in this
phase.
TECAR used hot air furnace for this process, which,
due to heat distribution feature inside the furnace,
did not always assure uniform profile vulcanization
and high product surface quality.
Moreover the use of hot air furnaces required remarkable
space in production areas, high energy costs due to
methane consumption and long furnace system start-up
times.
THE
SOLUTION
Microwave electrical
technology was introduced in small dimension profiles
vulcanising phase (4 production lines).
A MW plant + a hot post, vulcanising tunnel (needed
to maintain the profile temperature for the time required
to complete vulcanising process) substituted hot air
furnace.
Four MW furnaces were installed (2x31 kW and 2x25 kW-installed
power) together with post vulcanising hot air tunnels;
the whole system allow in any case space savings with
respect to traditional ones. Microwave systems installed
in TECAR factory are produced by the Spanish company
Cim d'Or.
RESULTS
aim : PRODUCT QUALITY
MW allowed improving
outgoing product quality (higher vulcanising uniformity
throughout the entire transversal product section and
a better surface appearance were obtained).
Energy savings are obtained thanks to MW selective profile
heating (energy is consumed only to heat profile and
not the entire surrounding volume) and reduction in
production times (equipment start-up times is no longer
required), therefore economical benefits are achieved.
Moreover environmental benefits were achieved (no air
poluting substances emission, leaner and less noisy
working areas with lower temperatures even near the
heating system).
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