BARMAG
PUMPS
YEARS
Actively using tradition and experience for the future of metering technology Without doubt, one of the most impressive examples of man successfully imitating the processes of nature using technology is the manufacture of synthetic filaments. The role model in nature is the silk worm that spins fine natural silk threads. The inventors of manmade fiber initially copied this process and then perfected it so that today it is possible to industrially produce extremely fine filaments, e.g. for textiles.
The origins It was for this reason – the construction and the production of machines for manufacturing and processing manmade fibers – that what is today Oerlikon Barmag was founded as Barmer Maschinenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft on March 27, 1922. As the name implies, the company was founded in the, at the time, independent Barmen, which is now part of Wuppertal.
Factory hall in the early years
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The aim of Barmag was originally to supply the former German-Dutch AKU/ Glanzstoff group (later AKZO/ENKA/ ACORDIS) with special machines for manufacturing and processing viscose. Due to the rapidly growing business volume and the associated company growth, the business moved to the current site in Remscheid-Lennep only four years later. As one of the most important components in the industrial spinning process is the spinning pump, the gear pumps business unit has been part of Barmag’s production and sales program ever since the company was founded 88 years ago. The spinning pump is designed to evenly force a preciselydefined quantity of the liquid to be spun through a nozzle, creating the filament in the process. For this reason, it fulfils two tasks: • It must build the pressure required for forcing the liquid through the nozzle • It must convey a consistent volume of the liquid pulsation-free, in other words meter the liquid Even almost 100 years ago, it was immensely important that spinning pumps carried out these tasks with great precision and reliability to enable a consistent filament thickness of the viscose fibers. For this reason, these 4
The viscose spinning pump after 20 years in operation
competencies were in demand even back in the very first years of Barmag’s pump construction activities: the development of products especially for the respective requirements as well as precision in the manufacture and in the application – competencies that make Barmag a coveted solution provider and supplier to this very day. However, what at the time was the limit of technical possibility today seems quite simple: initially, the pumps were made of cast iron, with the processing of the parts extensively carried out manually or on manuallyoperated machines and the control methods were also still very simple. But this all changed fundamentally later on.
Stormy economic times Soon after the company was founded, Barmag spinning pumps were not only favored by the AKU/Glanzstoff artificial silk factories, but also increasingly by other domestic and foreign companies. To this end, the pump construction business expanded rapidly before the world economic crisis of the 1920s saw production numbers fall drastically, followed by the outbreak of the Second World War ten years later, a war that
finally brought the factory to a total standstill. The post-war period was – for Barmag and Germany as a whole – characterized by reconstruction. Virtually half of the plant had been destroyed and had to be rebuilt by former employees, men who were in part returning by and by, before production could restart. However, the post-war period marked the beginning of a new era: within the manmade fiber sector, the new synthetic fibers embarked on an unstoppable conquest of the world. From artificial silk to manmade fibers
Pump assembly department in the 1930s
As manufacturing fullysynthetic fibers differs fundamentally from the production of cellulosebased manmade fibers, new machine technologies were required. Therefore, the 1950s were characterized by reorientation and increased development at Barmag. The conversion of the machine program from viscose to polyamide (and later to polyester, polyethylene and polypropylene as well) was supported by the development of spinning 5
pumps for these new hot melt spinning processes. In terms of construction and production technology, metering polymer melts required the use of hardened alloy steels with high temperature resistance, the selection of a reinforced design with increased pressure resistance and an increase in production precision to fulfill the accuracy requirements of manmade fiber production. We would like to mention the nylon pantyhose as just one of the many products made from manmade fibers. It is a symbol of Germany’s economic
miracle and also provided Barmag with the economic boost it needed to actively tap into new, worldwide markets.
Hotmelt spinning pump in rectangular design
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This is the period in which Barmag’s pump construction division experienced its second boom phase. In the mid-1960s, the divison was employing approx. 130 people and soon had an acute lack of space due to constantly expanding capacities. This led to the production facilities moving into new premises with the simultaneous implementation of a modern, tailor-made logistics system, which is admired by visitors to this very
up to four filaments. This simplification principle was systematically further developed by Barmag at the beginning of the 1980s with the introduction of the planetary gear spinning pump, which was initially built with three or four outlets, but today has up to 16 outlets. There is no end in sight for this development.
Hotmelt spinning pump in planetary design
day as it considerably simplifies material flow and optimally supports production coordination. The original design of viscose spinning pumps – two corresponding gears for each pump, in whose tooth spaces the conveying medium is transported from the pump inlet to the pump outlet and is displaced by the meshing of the two gears in the outlet area to create a conveyance flow and hence a filament – was initially transferred to the manmade fiber spinning pumps. However, later the gear levels in a pump were multiply stacked for rationalization reasons, so that just one pump was then required for
The development of synthetic fibers using the hot spinning process gave rise to the simultaneous birth of a new type of pump: the spin-finish pump. Just before winding, it is designed to moisten the freshly-spun filament with a spin-finish liquid using a nozzle to preserve it and – depending on the later application or further processing – give it further properties. The minimum throughput volumes of conveying medium posed a further special challenge for the manufacture of the pump in terms of precision and care. With gears that weigh no more than 1 gram, the pump appears almost as filigree as a watch movement and the work of the assembly staff is comparable to that of a watchmaker. And also the spin-finish pump was soon being built – parallel to the development of the spinning machines and the number of filament packages per spinning position – with a stacked design and is today available with up to 40 outlets. This means that a single pump comprises 50 gears. But just as important as in 7
Profin spin-finish pump
the case of the spinning pump, the development of the spin-finish pump continues. Processing is preceded by the production of the melt The spread of synthetic fibers in the 1950s had been preceded by the discovery in the 1920s/1930s that low-molecular materials (so-called monomers) could be transformed into macromolecules (socalled polymers) in chemical reactions under vacuum. The decisive property of polymers is that they can form infinitely long structures, in other words filaments. 8
Due to the rapidly increasing demand for polymers, the corresponding manufacturing processes – polymerization or poly-condensation – had to be swiftly industrialized. As, following production, the melt had to be sucked out of the vacuum, Barmag very soon developed and produced large-volume vacuumdischarge pumps. Initially, there only was the two-step process (1: producing the polymer in granulate form and 2: further processing the granulate to be melted using extruder spinning systems), which was however soon supplemented in the 1980s by one-step direct spinning systems (in other words, a direct linking of the spinning system and the poly-condensation unit). As the discharged melt has to be conveyed to the spinning positions under high pressure, Barmag had to add largevolume booster pumps to its program. Even if large-volume polymer pumps offer no direct influence on the later uniformity and precision of the filament thickness, the greatest production precision within very narrow tolerances is still required here to ensure the pumps provide good volumetric efficiency, hence guaranteeing the system’s economical efficiency. And this is where the other extreme in Barmag’s pump construction comes into its own: while the smallest gears weigh no more than 1 gram, the gear in the largest
Assembly of discharge pumps in the 1970s
of discharge pumps is a staggering 330 kilograms. Meanwhile, Barmag has entered into a cooperation with the Swiss pump manufacturer Maag Pump Systems, with the aim of exploiting cost benefits through joint marketing, which they can then pass on to the market. With this, Barmag is currently the world’s only supplier whose product range includes all gear pumps required in modern direct spinning systems (discharge, booster, spinning and spin-finish pumps).
In the realm of µ It goes without saying that pump development at Barmag is always accompanied by equipping the machinery with the very-highest quality components. State-of-the-art CNCcontrolled processing centers – operated by highly-qualified experts – enable the manufacture of all pump parts with reproducible tolerances in the µ range (1 µ = 1/1000 mm). Only this guarantees that the demanding pump designs, where all individual parts have 9
virtually an unlimited number of absolute dimensions, mechanically function flawlessly. Furthermore, the high-precision production is, of course, the prerequisite for precise metering of the conveying medium through the pump. To be able to fulfill these extreme quality requirements at all, the decisive work processes (grinding, lapping, assembly and validation) at Barmag are carried out in fully air-conditioned rooms – in the realm of the µ – so that even the tiniest inaccuracies can be definitively avoided as a result of the identical temperature and humidity conditions. And the final metering accuracy tests are also carried
Extrusion pumps
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out here to ensure that – always under the same conditions – the test results are correct and comparable. From the manmade fiber to the film Within the context of the constant expansion – in other words, diversification – of Barmag’s activities, extrusion systems were also added to the sales program at the end of the 1950s. In part, these plastic processing machines also require gear pumps to produce cast films and blow foils to evenly force the melt through the film die. And as the layer thickness of the films is merely a few µ, extreme metering accuracy is required
with pressure stability, minimum pulsation and high volumetric efficiency. In turn, this created a further business focus in Barmag‘s pump division, which has since been decisively shaping standards in this area with constant further developments. Although Barmag has meanwhile sold its plastics machines division, it continues to market its extrusion pumps to countless foil and film manufacturers throughout the world who esteem their reliability and durability – and beyond that to all other extrusion applications that require a pump for stabilizing processes.
Paint metering pump
Further diversification Regardless of which conveying medium a pump has to meter in classic applications – whether viscose, melt or spin finish – and no matter what volumes it has to cope with, – be these small amounts for textile titers, larger volumes for industrial titers, carpet yarns, tire yarns or stable fibers or even large quantities for extruded pipes, – all gear pumps fulfill the same task: evenly metering the medium with pressure. For this reason, it was only natural that Barmag needed to look for further applications that, although nontextile applications, demanded exactly what a gear pump offers. To this end, simple spinning pumps, whose designs were originally used in viscose spinning systems, were deployed
for metering primers and paint for automobile bodies in the early 1980s. The idea was obvious, as automotive lacquering requires the same absolute precision as manmade fibers. This initial “misappropriation” has meanwhile developed into a hugely successful autonomous series, which is constantly being further developed in close cooperation with customers in a practicebased and demand-oriented manner, so that Barmag paint metering pumps are today working hard in automobile plants throughout the world. Furthermore, they are of course also used in other lacquering applications (for the household appliance, construction and electrical systems industries, etc.). And Barmag will continue to offer new improvements 11
in the future as well, that identify and implement market requirements and hence determine the standards in this sector. A further, increasingly important, business focus is polyurethane foaming. Polyurethanes are synthetic polymers created by means of a reaction between two or more components. Using either low-pressure or high-pressure processes, these components are mixed in a precisely-defined ratio. Ensuring that this mixing ratio generates the desired properties in the end product requires the use of metering pumps.
Metering pump for polyurethane or chemical applications
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Polyurethane has diverse applications and can be used in mattresses, shoe soles, seals, automobile components, flooring, paint, adhesives, casting compounds, construction foams and textile coatings, to name but a few. As the product properties (density, strength and elasticity) can be influenced by the formulation, there are ever new applications. However, this presents the pumps and/or their developers with constant new challenges, as the ever changing requirements in terms of chemical and temperature stability, wear resistance, tightness, pressure resistance and pressure build-up capacity, among others, require ever new, technicallyprogressive solutions. Due to their universal application, Barmag metering pumps are also increasingly used in the chemicals industry. Their high level of metering quality makes them particularly interesting as the high-precision metering of liquids is an absolute prerequisites in many technical processes to ensure the required product qualities and guarantee efficient process management. Gear pumps are increasingly being deployed especially for metering small quantities, as metering is virtually pulsation-free in comparison to other systems and because a minimum technical effort
produces high metering accuracy. This metering quality is expressed in various factors: • High metering uniformity among several pumps • Pump‘s relative differential pressure independence • Pump‘s reproducibility Another non-textile application is fiberreinforced compounds, which are
finding use in ever more industries as a result of their utilization benefits (weight, strength and durability) and hence offer huge growth potential in the future: ship, airplane and automotive construction, wind power systems and chemical systems construction. Here, gear pumps are used both in the manufacture of the basic material, carbon fiber, and for casting a synthetic resin matrix onto the fibrous tissue. Barmag mixing and metering units are a development that started off in the manmade fiber industry and is today also used in other applications: the Inject AC feed system, with which even thin-fluid media can be metered at high pressures with 100% accuracy, in other words without any loss of efficiency, and the Flumix AC dynamic mixer, which effectively mixes the fed liquid into the melt. What was originally conceived to manufacture spun-dyed yarns with the greatest possible flexibility is today
Inject AC
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being just as successfully used in a similar manner in completely different processes. Active for the future of metering technology The list of applications for Barmag metering pumps goes on for ever and it will continue to do so as Barmag is still pursuing its philosophy of systematically developing new materials, alternative surface qualities and customized design concepts for the ever changing requirements of the markets. The company’s constant test and trial activities ensure that innovations are appropriately tested in terms of suitability and reliability prior to market launch and therefore provide users with the desired additional benefits. Furthermore, constant investment in both the production and in employee development ensures that Barmag remains on the cutting edge of production technology and will continue to provide the highest level of reproducible precision in the future. The in-house spinning systems technology competence that Barmag has – as the only pump manufacturer in the world – will ensure that the pumps are technologically always a step ahead with regard to the ever changing process requirements. 14
Openness towards innovative process technologies and the constant quest to remain a competent partner in the search for solutions to new metering challenges will contribute to ensuring that there will continue beyond the year 2010 to be only one name when it comes to the future of quality, reliability and efficiency in gear pumps: Oerlikon Barmag.
Oerlikon Barmag Zweigniederlassung der Oerlikon Textile GmbH & Co. KG Leverkuser StraĂ&#x;e 65 P.O. Box 11 02 40 42862 Remscheid GERMANY Phone: (49) 21 91/67-0 Fax: (49) 21 91/67-1794 www.pumpen.barmag.de pumpsales@barmag.de