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Acknowledgment: Aastu EPI
Acknowledgment: Aastu EPI
EPI
Acknowledgment
And finally I am grateful to all the teachers who helped me in every aspect. Especially
to Instructor Mahri E. for helping me to organize the paper
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Preface
This internship paper is divided in to five chapters. The first chapter contains the
general introduction of the paper which includes background of the internship,
objectives of the internship, significance of the internship,. The second chapter deals
with the literature review. The third chapter company structure. The fourth chapter
deals with the process description. The fifth chapter tries to forward relevant
conclusion and recommendation of the internship.
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Table of Contents
iChapter One................................................................................................... 1
1. Introduction.............................................................................................. 1
1.1 Background of the internship..........................................................1
1.2 Company Profile.............................................................................. 1
1.3 Objective of the Internship..............................................................2
1.4 Basic Internship Questions..............................................................2
Chapter Two.................................................................................................... 4
2. Literature Review....................................................................................... 4
2.1 Types of Plastic............................................................................... 4
2.2 Types of Production System............................................................5
2.3 Available Raw Material for Ethiopia Plastic Industry...........................5
Chapter Three.................................................................................................. 6
3 Ethiopian Plastic Industry Plants.....................................................................6
3.1 Poly and Printing Plant........................................................................6
3.2 Injection and Blow Molding Plant........................................................6
3.3 Profiling and Ceiling plant...................................................................6
4. Process Description and Unit Operation...............................................................7
4.1 Unit Operation.................................................................................... 7
4.1.1Mixing of Raw Materials........................................................................7
4.2 Process Description.........................................................................8
4.2.1 Poly and Printing Factory.................................................................8
Chapter Five.................................................................................................. 22
5. Conclusions and Recommendations..................................................................22
5.1 poly and printing
plant-------------------------------------------------------------------------------23
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5.2 profile and celing
plant-------------------------------------------------------------------------------25
Reference27
List of Figures
Figure.1: Unit Operation (Basic Operations)...............................................................................
8
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List of Tables
Table1. Co-monomer Content and Density Ranges for Commercial LLDPE Resins.................
9
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Acronyms
EPI - Ethiopia Plastic Industry
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Chapter One
1. Introduction
1.1 Background of the internship
The industrial internship to Ethiopia Plastic Industry (EPI) is to take it as an input or
reference material for any students who have interest in plastic Industry. It has helped me see,
what I have learned theoretically, practically.
This is beneficiary to Ethiopia Plastic Industry since the students could improve the
production process and could find new ways to better the products. In addition to find new
ways to produce the raw materials in Ethiopia that is imported from other countries.
1.2 Company Profile
Ethiopia plastic was established in 1960 by a group of five Italian entrepreneurs in 1973; the
military government took ownership of 55% of company, leaving the remaining 45% to the
original owners. Its capital was 2,200,000 birr. In 1978E.C Ethiopia plastic industry (EPI)
was totally owned by the government and continuous the production and sales of products
under the supervision of chemical corporation. In 2000E.C Ethiopia plastic industry was
established as fully state owned public enterprise with a capital of 29,670,000 birr. The
industry was transferred and operates under metal and engineering cooperation in 2003E.C.
Currently Ethiopia plastic industry has a capital of 29,679,000 birr; its total asset reaches
about 97.5 million birr. It has about 700 workers, including highly professional plastic
technologist, engineers, processors, management and marketing professionals.
The industry strives to satisfy the needs and wants of the customer requirement for plastic
related materials.
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The general objective of the paper is to improve and built up my understanding on the
practical industrial practice. Beside this it helps me to increase my altitude towards the basic
principle behind production process, raw material utilization.
In this study it will be attempted to investigate and seek answer to the following four basic
questions
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1.5 Significance of the Internship
The primary significance of the internship is to build the capacity of students practical skills
and experience sharing from industrial professionals and technical experts. The result of that
could be obtained from these internship may be an interest of Ethiopian Plastic Industry (EPI)
in particular. The result of the finding may serve as a base for taking action and to examine
their process technologies.
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Chapter Two
2. Literature Review
Plastic is any synthetic or semi-synthetic organic polymer. While plastics may be made from
just about any organic polymer, most industrial plastic is made from petrochemicals.
Thermoplastics and thermosetting polymers are the two types of plastic.
2.1Types of Plastic
Thermoplastic polymers- are normally produced in one step and then made into products in
a subsequent process. They become soft and formable when heated. The polymer melt can be
formed or shaped when in this softened state. When cooled significantly below their
softening point they again become rigid and usable as a formed article. This type of polymer
can be readily recycled because each time it is reheated it can again be reshaped or formed
into a new article. Thermoplastic materials are, in general, ductile and tougher than thermoset
materials. They can be either amorphous or semi crystalline. Their lower stiffness and
strength values require the use of fillers and reinforcements for structural applications.
Thermoplastics generally exhibit poor creep resistance, especially at elevated temperatures as
compared to thermosets.
Thermosetting polymers- are normally produced and formed in the same step as
thermoplastic.
Upon heating, thermosetting polymers will become soft, but cannot be shaped or formed to
any great extent, and will definitely not flow. Thermosets may soften to some extent at
elevated temperatures. They are brittle in nature and are generally used with some form of
filler and reinforcement. Its resins provide easy process ability and better fiber impregnation
because the liquid resin is used at room temperature for various processes. Thermosets offer
greater dimensional stability, better rigidity, and higher electrical, chemical, and solvent
resistance.
Additives are added to polymers in order to obtain or improve certain properties such as
strength, stiffness, color, resistance to weather and flammability. Plasticizers are added to
obtain flexibility and softness, most common use of plasticizers is in PVC. Fillers such as
fine saw dust, silica flour, calcium carbide are added to reduce the cost and to increase
harness, strength, toughness and dimensional stability.
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2.2 Types of Production System
1. Blow molding system- the mold of the desired shape is fitted around the outside of
the plastic. Next air is blown into the tubes which dries it and molds it.
2. Injection system- The raw material is placed on the needed place and the mold is
pressed on the plastic which gives it the desired shape and it is next cooled with cold
air.
3. Extrusion system- Plastics extrusion is a high volume manufacturing process in
which raw plastic material is melted and formed into a continuous profile. Extrusion
produces items such as pipe/tubing, weather stripping, fence, deck railing, window
frames, plastic films and sheet, thermoplastic coatings, and wire insulation.
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Chapter Three
This plant is used to produce poly sheet, poly bag, poly tabular and poly roll. The raw
material it uses is LDPE or LLDPE and master batch for colored pigment. It uses extrusion
system.
Here the products that are produced can be used in house holding, military product and
construction. It uses blow molding and injection systems. The raw materials used are PVC
compounds, recovery, HDPE and master batch.
There is also boots machine which produces boots with PVC compound, recovery and
master batch.
Extrusion system is used in this plant. Profile and ceiling of different size and shape are
produced in this plant with PVC resin and other chemicals.
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Chapter Four
This is the first process or unit operations in the production of plastic. The raw materials that
are needed will be proportionated and mixed together with the master batch to give it the
desired color.
The mixed raw materials will be transferred to the hopper where it will be heated to be
shaped into the desired shape.
4.1.3 Dying
This process is simply shaping the melted raw materials in to the desired shape.
4.1.4 Cooling
This unit operation is done by using water. It is one of the unit operations that help us get the
desired product. If not cooled and dried the product could easily deform.
4.1.5 Mashing
It is one of the unit operation involved in the production of plastic. It is a size reduction
process (crushing).
4.1.6 Cutting
INTRNSHIP FINAL RPORT
7
AASTU
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After the product is cooled and dried, it is then cut in to the size that the customer wants.
Mixing
Heating
Dying
Cooling
Mashing
Cutting
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LLDPE is made by the copolymerization of ethylene and -olefins although practically any
-olefin from C3 to C20 can be used as co monomer for LLDPE, the four most commonly
used are 1-butene, 1-hexene, 4-methyl-1-pentene, and 1-octene.
Table1. Co-monomer Content and Density Ranges for Commercial LLDPE Resins
Chain Structure LLDPE comprises linear molecules of ethylene and -olefins and can be
generally represented by the formula where n
is the number of carbon atoms in the -olefin
Light duty
Medium duty, and
Heavy duty
Master batch (colorant): Color pigments are mixed prior to extrusion process with the raw
materials in order to give the desired color for the film to be produced.
EPI poly and printing factory use two types of master batches which are called general
purpose master batch and polyethylene master batch
General purpose master batch can be used as a colorant for every type of raw material
Polyethylene master batch used as colorant for raw materials of polyethylene polymer
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Raw material identification: Before buying raw materials EPI take 25kg samples of raw
material suppliers and melt flow index analysis will be done in the lab to identify whether the
sample is really the desired raw material or not and to ensure optimum processing
temperature of thermoplastic raw material.
Melt flow Index: Melt flow index test is simple method of identifying the raw material which
is a function of temperature and load applied on piston. For different conditions the applied
load and temperature is different in EPI for polyethylene polymers you will take 20 samples
in each 30 seconds interval you will calculate the average mass flow rate (mass/time) and
finally check with the EPI and ISO standards to pass the raw material for the desired
production order.
: Temp=test temperature in
: Load=normal weight in Kg
Density Test
Another method of identifying raw material is to check its density by measuring fixed mass
of raw material and the volume of alcohol or water it displaces
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Machine setup
Quality inspection
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The raw materials are first feed in the hopper. The hopper feeds the resin into the extruder by
the help of gravity. Heating elements and the turning of the extruder screw melts the resin
into molten form and forces it through the extruder. The molten poly flows evenly up and
over the circular die. As the flattened plastic tube emerges from the die opening, air is blown
inside the hollow tube to stretch and thin the tube to the desired size and wall thickness. The
plastic is then air cooled and pulled away on take-up roller.
Blown film extrusion is the process by which most commodity and specialized plastic films
are made. In Blown Film Extrusion (Film Blowing) Plastic melt is extruded through an
annular slit die, usually vertically, to form a thin walled tube. Air is introduced via a hole in
the center of the die to blow up the tube like a balloon. Mounted on top of the die, a high-
speed air ring blows onto the bubble to stabilize the bubble and cool it. This allows
manufacturers to run at higher rates without losing bubble stability. On higher output lines,
the air inside the bubble is also exchanged. This is known as IBC (Internal Bubble Cooling).
The tube of film then continues upwards, and is pre-flattened using a collapsing frame (also
known as v-boards or A-frame) until it passes through nip rolls. The flattened bubble is now
known as a lay flat tube. This lay-flat or collapsed tube is then taken back down the extrusion
' tower' via idler rollers.
The lay-flat film is then either kept as such or the edges of the lay-flat are slit off to produce
two flat film sheets and wound up onto reels. If kept as lay-flat, the tube of film is made into
bags by sealing across the width of film and cutting or perforating to make each bag. This is
done either in line with the blown film process or at a later stage.
Typically, the expansion ratio between die and blown tube of film would be 1.5 to 4 times the
die diameter. The drawdown between the melt wall thickness and the cooled film thickness
occurs in both radial and longitudinal directions and is easily controlled by changing the
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volume of air inside the bubble and by altering the haul off speed. This gives blown film a
better balance of properties than traditional cast or extruded film which is drawn down along
the extrusion direction only.
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Here we need to know that
Solid conveying is feeding zone
Melting is the melt starting and compression zone
Melt pumping is metering zone
1. The polymer material starts in a pellet form, which are successively compacted and
melted to form a continuous, viscous liquid. This molten plastic is then forced, or
extruded through an annular die.
2. Air is injected through a hole in the center of the die and the pressure causes the
extruded melt to expand into a bubble. The air entering the bubble replaces air leaving
it, so that even and constant pressure is maintained to ensure uniform thickness of the
film.
3. The bubble is pulled continually upwards from the die and a cooling ring blows air
onto the film. The film can also be cooled from the inside using internal bubble
cooling. This reduces the temperature inside the bubble, while maintaining the bubble
diameter.
4. After solidification at the frost line, the film moves into a set of nip rollers which
collapse the bubble and flatten it into two flat film layers. The puller rolls pull the film
onto windup rollers. The film passes through idler rolls during this process to ensure
that there is uniform tension in the film. Between the nip rollers and the windup
rollers, the film may pass through a treatment center, depending on the application.
During this stage, the film may be slit to form one or two films, or surface treated.
Product
In poly and printing factory there are three types of products such as poly bag, poly sheet, and
poly tubular. In addition to this in poly factory finishing works also done side by side with
production process, such as soldering and printing.
Machine capacity
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In order to know the machine capacity of one extrusion machine we need to give
consideration for the following conditions: Speed of the extruder
: Speed of the nip roller
: Velocity of air conditioner
: Raw material type
: Presence of scrap or continuousness of the process
Product distribution
Poly and printing factory machines have the ability to produce the following product ranges
Length 5cm -3m
Thickness 50m-450m
These different products distribution can be achieved by using the appropriate machine for
the desired thickness and length.
Product application
Agricultural film
Bags
Laminating film
Barrier film
Multilayer film
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Profile and ceiling plant are processed in Ethiopia plastic industry and it is one of the five
plants in Ethiopia plastic industry.
PVC profiles are widely used in the world for different purposes. Those products are
produces (processed) from different raw material composition with different amount (ratio).
Their color, hardness and softens are different with the amount of the compounds that we
mix. So we have to care at the compounding area.
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Raw materials for ceiling Ratio Clinker
PVC resin 75kg PVC resin 25
CaCO3 (filler) 22kg CaCO3 (fille) ratio 8
TiO2 2.6kg TiO2 ratio 20
CPE (chlorinated poly 4kg
ethylene)
SMS (stabilizer) 2.5kg
DOP (plasticizer) 0.90liter
The main raw materials used in the production of profile and celling are PVC, other
Recovered material storage
chemicals such as CaCO3 ,TiO2 , CPE, SMS ,WAX ,HST, DOX as .
R/m from factory short term storage
The raw material is first fed into the loader to be mixed and heated at 150 0C up to2200C.
Once it has melted, it is forced through the mold to form continues profile. After passing
through the mold and achieve the desire shape it isPlastic
allowed to cool by water and dried by air.
recovery center
Then cut to desired size and assemble as a door and /or window based on the desire customer
R/m loader
design. The scrap will be collected and recycle
Extrusion process
Work in process
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Type-extrusion process
First the raw materials were mixed in the mixed zone (compounding zone).Then by extrusion
process the row materials will be melt by different heating zones and the melted plastic pass
through the mold to have the desired shape that we need to manufacture. Then it pass through
water to be cool and harden finally the desired product is manufactured and catted by the
cutter with length that we need and transferred to store.
In PVC profile and celling factory there are 26 processes which are processed through the
extrusion processes. These are
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2. inserting panel 16. square pipe
3. sliding sash 17.cover board
4. door sash inside 18. sliding sash
5. T casement frame 19. sliding main frame
6. window sash outside 20.sliding single glazing
7. window sash inside 21. sliding double glazing
8. casement single glazing 22. H- tappet
9. casement double glazing 23. sliding T -frame
10. profile t connector 24. celling
11. celling t connector 25. corner check list
12. flat hallow pipe
13. door sash out side
14. partition
Quality
- On process
- Product
On process- Temperature
- Thickness
- Length
- Centrist
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- Color
Products - They are the same as on process with surface roughness test
There are two types of machines in injection and blow molding factories.
Those are
Blow molding machines it use air to blow and mold the desire product. It have a lot of
processing steps to give the product that we need from the row material that we feed for. It
Raw material HDPE ( high density poly ethylene) ,blow molding grade, recovery , master
batch
The raw materials are processed through a lot of steps the desired product.
Here after the die there is mandrill and it must have to adjust for both the upper is and lower
mandrill to protect our resource from wastage. There are two kinds of blow molding
machines in Ethiopia plastic. Their process is the same but they have the only difference on
their molding. These are used the same kinds of raw materials with the some process with
that of different master batches.
In Ethiopia plastics a lot of products are processed through a blow molding machines. Some
of them are
1. military coda
2. one liter bottle
3. liter Jeri can
4. 5 liter Jeri can
5. 10 liter Jeri can
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Injection machine
This machine uses an injection machine system or injections the material through its nozzle
in to the molding area of the machine. It is a new matic pressurized system machine.
Nozzle it is the feeder part of the machine to the molding part of the machine.
A lot of plastic material are processed using an injection machine .some of them are
Turn on heater
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Yes
Chapter Five
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Melt fractures these appear as roughness or wavy lines on the film surface.
Thickness variations in the film.
Die lines on the surface of the film this defect reduces the aesthetic appeal of the film,
reduces optical properties, and weakens mechanical properties such as tear strength
Scratches on nip and winding rollers this may cause unfair load distribution over film width
Improper raw material and product handling
Recommendation
Possible solutions to the air entrapment between film layer and roller is using a
vacuum to remove entrapped air or by using winding rolls with a diamond shaped
groove in the rubber cover to increase surface area and decrease amount of entrapped
air in the film.
Output fluctuation can be prevented by keeping the extruder clean and by using more
consistently shaped pellets in the extruder.
Melt fracture can be eliminated by lowering the viscosity of the polymer melt. This
can be done by increasing the melting temperature or by adding an internal lubricant
to the material composition
Variation in thickness can be avoided by centering the die in the extrusion line before
every run, adjusting the air speed of the cooling system, or by using heated die lips
Die lines can usually be avoided by routinely cleaning the inner surfaces of the die
and by refinishing scratched or roughened flow surfaces.
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Perform tests other than melt flow index such as infrared spectroscopy, solvent test
,and flame test in order to assure the raw material is right for the desired order
Perform tensile strength for poly bags in order to know maximum load it can handled
Perform tests other than dart test on the products such as thermal resistance to know
maximum working temperature of the product
Write product precaution in order to help the customer to handle and use the product
properly.
In PVC profile and ceiling factory a lot of products are manufactured for a different purpose,
some of their purpose is-
- For window
- For door
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These products are designed of assembled at the workshop room to show as a sample or
choice for the client (market sample). They are widely used by the customers for their home
and window to seams decorated or attractive especially the printed ones.
Problems
The printing machine is not on the way of manufacturing the printing product which is
mostly attracted most of the customer because it is a colored product and more useful for roof
working.
If must have to solve within a short time to make this company economically efficient.
In this factory there is not process for recovery and a lot of PVC raw material is draw out of
this factory when it is not manufactured the quality product and it may make if economically
un efficient.
Conclusion
A lot of products are produced through blow molding and injection molding for different
purposes. For example military purposes
-construction
-house hold
-shoes
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The above are produced through blow molding and injection efficient. Most of the products
in injection and blow molding are from recovery and they are economically beneficial.
These products are processed for different purpose and they are distributed to their consumers
to fit with their purpose. These are used for water, milk, oil and generally for liquid holding
uses. So those are not mostly processed from recovery or it is not tolerable to process those
house hold products from recycling.
These products are processed through an injection machine with changing the molding part of
the machine. These the products are used for different purpose on their consumer. The
product wastage can be recycled to process for other product or for itself. The injection
machines can use recovery raw material and virginal.
Boots machine
It is an injection machine type. It differs from the other injection machine type on its four
time part cycles.
-recovery,
-master batch
Problems
To be economically efficient wastages like scrap must be decreased the amount of scrap is
our wastage is increased and our companies profit is related with that and campaniles benefit
is decreased.
Centering and timing of the machines there is the key for the decrease and increase of our
wastage (scrap) and we should have to take care of centering and timing of up and down
moving machines.
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Especially in boots machines there is a centering problem and a lot of melted row material
(plastic) is blowing out of the nozel outside of the machines and it is not only wasting of our
resources but it is a rescue and danger for the employee who are work
Reference
[3] Encarta
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