Custom Fiber Air Shafts for Custom Converting Machinery
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Where can an OEM of custom converting machinery go for lightweight air shafts that meet the challenges of handling extra-long, extra-heavy rolls? That's exactly the situation that led Premier Paper Converting Machinery to tap the custom carbon fiber winding capabilities of NimCor, Inc., a nationally known producer of both conventional and carbon fiber air shafts.
Premier Paper Converting Machinery (New Berlin, Wis.) makes machines that produce fiber and corrugated partitions - like the dividers inside cases of glass containers. The company's latest achievement is a custom machine for producing honeycomb panels used as protective packaging inside cartons of heavier products, like appliances.
Feeding this machine are four rolls, up to 98 inches long and weighing up to 5,300 lbs. The core shafts for these rolls had to be precisely 100 mm in diameter. Most important, the shafts had to be long, strong and lightweight enough for the customer to safely handle.
NimCor's solution was a core shaft as custom as the machinery itself. NimCor engineers calculated load and deflection specifications. Then, using in-house carbon fiber winding capabilities, NimCor employed a special winding pattern with a high-strength fiber modulus and resin to obtain the required tube strength, rigidity and weight. Hardened steel journals would serve as bearing surfaces while also custom-machined to the OEM's brake system.
In the end, NimCor's engineering and manufacturing carried the day in delivering a carbon fiber core shaft that could properly support these huge rolls. The finished shafts weighed less than 140 lbs - light enough for two people to safety handle.
Premier Paper Converting Machinery www.ppcm.net
NimCor Inc. www.nimcor.com
