In the run-up to the K-Show, the world’s most important trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry, the Investitions- und Marketinggesellschaft Sachsen-Anhalt organised a press trip for interested journalists on 5 August on the subject of “Plastics – Recycling and Recycling in Central Germany”. One station was the ThermHex production facility. A nice summary can be found in the current issue of K-Profi (9/19) starting on page 46.

“Greener” and cheaper lightweight construction with PP honeycomb cores: ThermHex

ThermHex Waben GmbH has been producing polypropylene honeycomb cores in Halle (Saale) since 2010. Founded in 2009, the company is a licensee of EconCore from Leuven, Belgium. As a strong but flexible lightweight material, such PP honeycomb cores offer good mechanical properties at a favourable price/performance ratio. They have a density of 80kg/m³. Applications with lower compressive strength requirements are served by a lighter 60kg/m³ core. Currently ThermHex produces honeycomb cores with a thickness from 3mm to 28mm and a cell width from 3mm to 9. 6mm, the size of the panels is up to 1. 40 x 2. 50m (see also the cover picture of this issue).

The honeycomb cores are produced in a continuous production process from a single film by thermal forming, folding and thermal welding. Immediately after leaving the slit gland, the extruded flat film is provided on an embossing roll with a structure of lying half honeycombs and then continuously folded, set up and compressed in a belt press between Teflon belts in a z-shape in such a way that a plate-like, honeycomb-shaped reinforcing structure with a position perpendicular to the direction of draw-off is produced.
The panels obtained in this way can be laminated with nonwovens, glass or carbon fibre structures or other laminates in such a way that they result in semi-finished products with a homogeneous top layer that can be further processed and automatically assembled, stacked, transported and further processed by the customer. The standard product is a honeycomb core made of polypropylene with a PET fleece top layer.

Click here to read the full report about ThermHex.

Photos: Michael Deutsch