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Flexible packaging engineering

Haitsma, O. (2015) Flexible packaging engineering.

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Abstract:For my 20 EC internship I have been working from 13 October 2014 until 6 February 2015 at SafePak, a company in Cape Town which produces flexible packaging. The company has the following departments: extrusion, printing and slitting, and bag making as well as a workshop which mainly serves for repairing breakdowns. Besides there’s office staff who do planning, administration and management. In total the company has about 200 employees. There’s no engineering department, so the intern is the only engineer. However, the factory manager, who supervises the interns, has a mechanical engineering background. I worked as mechanical engineer on different projects concerning design of new machines or improvement of existing machines. Some of the projects include (management of) prototyping, manufacturing and commissioning. The first project was about designing a pre-sealer in order to improve sealing quality and speed. Due to folding the bottom of the bags consist of four layers of plastic where the rest of the bag has two. This makes that for sealing more heat is required at the bottom of the bag. Different options have been considered and tested. Eventually a bottom part is designed to be mounted on an existing actuator system. The second project concerns adjusting the location of punched holes due to slightly changing bag sizes. Currently this is done by hand. To be able to automate this adjustment, a measurement system, an actuation system and a control system have been designed. Measurement will be done with a rotary encoder and actuation with a geared DC-motor which moves the complete punch carriage driven by a timing belt. The third project is the design of a belt sander to be able to polish the drum of printing machines. The sanding belt is actuated by an angle grinder and guided by pulleys. This is mounted to a vertical plate which is driven by a lead screw to move across the drum. The whole design is mounted onto a frame which can be clamped into the printing machine. Some smaller side projects concern the design of a mechanical unfolding system, a parking layout and crate and hanger system.
Item Type:Internship Report (Master)
Clients:
Safepak, South Africa
Faculty:ET: Engineering Technology
Subject:52 mechanical engineering
Programme:Mechanical Engineering MSc (60439)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/69197
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