WCA July 2011

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Industrynews
Wire & Cable ASIA – July/August 2011 15
IN March Chinese Congress adopted
the new Five Year Plan in Beijing.
The plan aims to restructure the
Chinese economy, and part of this plan
is that China wants to spend less
energy in order to save commodities
and to protect the environment.
China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao,
announced that energy consumption
should be reduced for every earnt
Yuan by 16% until 2015.
China enjoys tremendous economic
growth but simultaneously faces high
inflation.
Commodities and producer prices are
rising steadily. Another consequence of
the economic upswing is the great
demand for labour force, which in
reverse leads to an increase of labour
cost, followed by higher sales prices.
Therefore, Wen Jiabao’s request for
dealing carefully with natural resources
comes at the right time. The saving of
commodities such as crude oil
contributes to a reduction of
manufacturing costs and strengthens
China’s competitive capability.
In cable production lines, measuring
and control technology offers an
opportunity to reduce material
consumption and to protect the
environment. The insulation of cables
is made of plastic, which in turn is
made of crude oil.
With the integration of measuring
equipment in their lines manufacturers
avoid wall thickness oversize. This
means less plastic material is needed
to produce the specified cable, and the
technology assures quality during the
complete production process. Scrap
rate will be eliminated, commodities
saved and productivity increased.
The following provides an idea of the
amount of material and thus crude oil
that can be saved in practice. From
1kg of crude oil, around 500g of
polyethylene can be recovered (source:
German Federal Environment Agency
08/2010).
As energy is also needed for cable
production, you can calculate with the
relation 2:1, so for 1kg polyethylene
you need 2.5l crude oil.
Assuming that a production line runs
275 working days (6,600h/yr) with an
extruder output of 600kg/h, over a year
this makes up 4mn kg polyethylene.
With, for example, an X-RAY 6000 (for
wall thickness, eccentricity, diameter
and ovality measurement), claimed
material savings of at least 5% can be
achieved. As a result, 200,000kg of
material can be saved. If the price for
1kg of polyethylene is €1, this amounts
to a saving of €200,000 per year with
one X-RAY 6000.
Taking all cable manufacturers
together, with the use of Sikora
measuring and control technology they
could achieve savings of
approximately 1.5mn tons crude oil per
year, solely through the reduction of
material consumption. This number is
equivalent to 6 ultra large crude
carriers with a carrying capacity of
over 250,000 tons.
For quality control and energy saving
at insulating and jacketing lines Sikora
offers the X-RAY 6000, the successor
of the proven and successful X-RAY
2000 series. The new system fulfils the
industrial need for an accurate
measurement of wall thickness,
eccentricity, diameter and ovality. In
combination with the display and
control device ECOCONTROL 6000,
the measuring system provides
information for the optimum control of
the production line in automatic mode.
The X-RAY 6000 offers a variety of
technical innovations that set new
standards regarding precision, long
operation time and efficiency. Precise
measurements are achieved under all
line conditions. The technology of the
X-RAY 6000 allows a fast centring of
the extrusion tools and control of line
speed or extruder rpm in consideration
of the minimum values. The X-RAY
6000 is able to measure and control up
to three layers of different materials.
Sikora AG – Germany
Fax: +49 421 48900 90
Email:
Website:
China’s prime minister
demands commodity savings
m m The X-RAY 6120 helps cable
manufacturers to assure quality and to
reduce material consumption