An excellent engineering performance!
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In 2007, the brewery C.& A. VELTINS came up with an interesting project and asked Schoeller Arca Systems for support.
The dark green bottle crate with a simple printing decoration, which was in use more than 15 years, had to be replaced by a crate with a modern and trendsetting design.
Until the end of 2009, Schoeller Arca Systems will produce around four million bottle crates for the 20 x 0.5l and 24 x 0.33l VELTINS Pils. |
For the design development the agency Porsche Design was put in charge by VELTINS. They designed a crate of a unique appearance. The well rounded corner bars, the wide opened hand grips and at least the distinctive two-colour design attract interest.
It was a big technical challenge to implement the concept of the design agency. Schoeller Arca Systems established a new production technology, which until then, had not been used to for the manufacturing of bottle crates.
Three plastic components have to be processed in order to implement the desired design. After producing the basic shape of the crate in silver-grey, the sides of the crate are overmoulded with green plastic. In the process the VELTINS logo writing is recessed, so that the silver grey stands out from the dark green background. In the third step the processing of the handgrip takes place. In order to highlight the visual effect and also the carrying comfort, a further component is overmoulded, in which a grip friendly grating is applied.
The VELTINS crate is a great example for an adequate application of the three component injection moulding, which demands an accurate material processing. The application of a single material, polyethylene, enables the fabrication of a completely recyclable crate, which is robust as well as scratch insensitive and insusceptible to shock.
As an alternative to this solution a design with inmould label was discussed. Since the green surface of the crate has a horizontal ribbed structure, which should be continued around the corners without any interruption, VELTINS decided to take the multi component technology. Only with overmould technology this design feature can be realized in a perfect way.
The projects VELTINS and Radeberger (2007), show that multi component injection moulding is not only applied for the realization of functional components, like the handles of a crate. A step forward, the overmould technology is now used as a basic creative tool. This evolves a new type of crate which is characterized by a concise, functional design. It sets a counterpoint to the very colourful inmould label crates.
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