Most custom injection molding companies use a general purpose screw design in their machines to process the widest range of plastic materials. From the very beginning, AGS Technology has specified a mixing screw design. AGS’ initial injection molding screw design was based on years of compounding experience extruding recycled plastics. This original design helped ensure that large regrind chunks were efficiently melted and then compounded with good distributive mixing during the screw retraction phase of the injection molding cycle.
Over the last twenty-five years, this design has evolved and AGS has identified improvements. For example, the explosive growth and use of long glass fiber has created ongoing sources of plastic scrap that AGS Technology has qualified for use in many of its Injectoblend™ formulations. Long glass fiber is a great new source of recycled material to enhance tensile properties, but this material has introduced a new challenge. The long glass strands have a tendency to bundle and are more difficult to break-up. When molding parts with small gates (eg. sub-gate) these glass bundles can block the opening causing short shots. As a result, more dispersive mixing is now required in order to effectively mold these parts. Through extensive R&D efforts, AGS Technology has resolved the long glass fiber bundling issue by incorporating more dispersive mixing capability into its latest generation screw design.
A core value of AGS Technology is continuous improvement. The incremental design enhancements made to its injection molding machine screws is emblematic of AGS’ drive to accelerate its competitive advantage of direct injection molding of recycled plastic now and well into the future.