2 in 1. A successful bond for a pump body

Problem: defects and waste in the assembly phase of the 2 parts of a technical component of the pump body.

Solutions: Eliminate the assembly step.

It seems obvious (and easy) but it required all the commitment and expertise of the technical office, the mould workshop and the MPT Plastic molding department. And a nice dose of versatility.

To learn how we helped our customer – a leader in water handling and management in civil, commercial and agricultural irrigation applications – to make the production process of primary pump body components more efficient, read the full article.

 For MPT Plastic INNOVATION means seeking a continuous simplification of the installation, use and maintenance experience of products. That’s why we often suggest practical solutions to our customers to improve the efficiency of the processes and the final result.

Taking project initiatives is an investment we make to consolidate the long-term strategic partnership and is based on or extensive multidisciplinary experience. We ask the customer for confidence, but the result speaks for us and the return on investment is guaranteed.

Today we tell you the case of an important manufacturer of technologies for the handling and management of water in domestic and residential, civil, commercial and irrigation system for agriculture. After successfully completing several orders, we proposed the design and construction of a new mould for a very important component of the final product (a hydraulic pump) that could more efficiently and quickly meet customer needs.

Objectives achieved:

• Saving on maintenance of equipment
• Cost savings and assembly times
• Increased moulding efficiency
• Equal daily production capacity

SINGLE PUMP BODY

Among the various details that MPT Plastic supplies to the customers, one of the most important is certainly what is called “Pump Body”. It is a technical component weighing about 2 kg, made of polypropylene filled with 30% glass fiber (PP GF 30), which was previously produced using 2 molds in parallel, to cope with the required numbers.

After some delivered supplies, MPT Plastic had found and highlighted some critical issues in these 2 separate pieces of equipment that would be solved by redesigning the production process through the use of only 1 mold, able to guarantee the same daily production capacity.

Despite some initial doubts, their technicians have relied on the consolidated expertise that MPT has acquired operating in various product sectors and adopting different molding technologies.
Thus began the codesign phase during which the two technical teams collaborated to optimize the geometries of the “Pump Body” through an interchange of FEM analysis – to verify the sustainability of the changes – and mold flow analysis – to verify that the desired cycle time could be reached, without this being at the expense of compliance with the required tolerances.

The result led to some changes in the geometry of the technical component to make it feasible with a single mold.

• Better standardization of material distribution
• Lighten masses of superfluous material in certain areas.

GLASS FIBRE ALERT

Anyone who works in the stamping industry knows that it is always a challenge to limit the distortions in the workpiece when technopolymers with a high percentage of glass fiber are transformed. This criticality has already emerged with simple and small products. The “Pump Body” of this model weighs 2 kg and is composed of a complex and reticulated geometry.

The design of the flow and circuit of the mould for the PP GF 30 material was therefore very complex an required a great deal of effort in the process of mold flow analysis and interpretation of data derived from models and simulations.

Only thanks to the experience gained in the manufacture of injection moulds for the most diverse application areas – from household items to gardening equipment, up to the details for scooters, motorcycles and cars – it was possible to prevent defects and corrections on new equipment.

And above all, respect the delivery times required by the customers, which were a abiding condition at the beginning of the order. So the password for MPT was once again “good for the first”.

LESSONS LEARNED

From this project we learned several important lessons:

• When there is a challenge to be met, our multidisciplinary team has the technical and structural skills to face it and best achieve the goal;
• It is essential to continue to invest in machinery and new technologies in order to expand and speed up our operational capacity.
• To counter an increasing competitive market that erodes operating margins, MPT invests in the growth of professional know-how and technological innovation.