Magna Exteriors: Technological Revolution With Transfer HP-RTM Production Line

 

 

Magna and Cannon have developed an innovative “Transfer HP-RTM” integrated system that significantly improves production efficiency.

 

Magna Exteriors (Bohemia), part of the Magna Group, is an important supplier of plastic components to the automotive industry.

 

Magna Exteriors began working with Cannon in 2014, purchasing a Cannon HP-RTM laboratory equipment, including a press, two metering devices and two mixing heads.

 

At the end of 2018, Magna Bohemia again worked with Cannon and purchased two more equipment to produce reinforced structural parts for trunk doors.

 

These lines are very similar and highly innovative, and both use a new integrated system to replace the combination of a press with a mold and a metering device.

 

The advantage of the new integrated system is that a variety of different products can be produced on the same line.

 

 

The Transfer HP-RTM line incorporates three innovative concepts:

 

1. The “cavity closing device” for high-pressure molds: A mixing head injects resin into the mold. When the required in-mold pressure is reached, the injection stops, and a “cavity closing device” blocks the resin inlet channel and then individually closes the corresponding mold cavity. This “cavity closing device” keeps the mold cavity closed and the required in-mold pressure. Cannon is applying for a patent for this innovation, which for the first time realizes “moving the mold while the resin is curing”.

 

2. Mold transfer system: After the mold completes the resin injection at the “injection station” (entering the press), it will enter the curing time through the module of the transfer system. After the curing time is reached, the mold is transferred to the service station for retrieval. At the same time, other molds are transferred to the “injection station” for resin injection.

 

3. Service station: The service station is an auxiliary equipment of the large-tonnage press, which is specially designed for the retrieval, cleaning, insert placement and application of mold release agents of parts.

 

The equipment adopts a modular design layout, which makes it easier to implement and expand: together with large-tonnage presses, the central module station of the equipment is shared, and the production line can be expanded in a mirrored manner to shorten the cycle time by half and double the output.

 

In addition, this equipment can also manage up to 7 mold transfer stations, that is, a single press and a mold transfer system can manage different molds for different products at the same time, which makes the equipment very flexible.

 

In short, Cannon’s Transfer HP-RTM is an innovative, highly customized integrated system with very high flexibility and optimized cycle time, while also reducing workers’ manual operations, ultimately reducing investment costs and optimizing production logistics.