Optimize your hollow core production with automatic equipment

This year’s automated hollow core product news includes Drillbeam E9, Saw E9, Wagon E9, and Tarpaulin Roller P7. Automation is not done only with machinery; software plays a crucial role in automated production. With its easy-to-use visual user interface, Elematic Plant Control helps achieve a smooth process with zero interruptions and low operational costs. It can take slab design information from BIM programs and help optimize the use of production lines and work schedules, and monitors work progress

At the center of Elematic’s automated hollow core product offering, you will find the world’s fastest extruder.

The automatic Extruder E9 was launched at Bauma in 2019 and has since impressed the hollow core industry around the world with its reliable quality slabs and exceptionally high speed of up to 2.7m/min.

“By using the new E9, we’ve been able to go from six beds of material up to eight, so we’re actually stripping two additional beds,” says Mike Rufenacht, director of manufacturing at US precaster Molin Concrete Products, where Extruder E9 has been in use for about a year.

The extruder features an automatic compaction system, so you don’t need an operator to adjust it. It will automatically follow the fluctuation in the quality of the concrete and adjust the casting parameters accordingly.

Modifier E9 – that was also introduced at the last Bauma – competently takes care of the digging of openings in the slabs for, for example, sewer pipes or ventilation ducts. It also marks cut lines and other markings and drills holes.

Moreover, it can recycle the dugout concrete back to the extruder, which can reduce the concrete consumption by several percentage points depending on how many openings you have.

“The Modifier E9 saves our personnel from the toughest jobs, and we save about 1.5 operators behind the machine,” notes Ove Sandvin, Technical Advisor at Contiga.

Last year, the Norwegian precaster raised the bar for automated hollow core production with its new plant on the island Askøy.

By adding the brand new Drillbeam E9, the drilling of water holes is sped up. Combined with Modifier E9, it can give the extra speed needed to fully utilize the ultra-fast Extruder E9.

The cutting of the slabs, after curing, can also be fully automated with the new Saw E9 as can slab transportation with the automated Wagon E9.

Among this year’s new Elematic launches, you will also find Tarpaulin Roller P7. Both driving and coiling are battery-driven and started by the push of a button, which again saves labor costs.