A die which makes tubes of certain sizes will not be suitable for pipes of larger sizes. For instance, the extruder which makes pipes can be used for wire and cable coating, profiles, film, and sheet extrusion.įor every type of product mentioned above, a special die is required. In many instances, the same extruder and downstream equipment can be used for multiple products as long as the equipment has the capacity to produce the products. The final finished product shape is formed by the downstream equipment, which consists of calibration, cooling, haul-off, and cutting equipment. The melt is pushed through the die to roughly the desired shape. The purpose of the extruder to which the die is attached is to plasticize the granules (or powder, in some cases) of plastic into a homogeneous melt. Whatever the product may be, the purpose of the die is to shape the plastic melt into a desired form. The product can be tubes, pipes, rods, profiles, coated wires, cables, filaments, film, or sheet. In the extrusion line, it is the die that takes the plastic melt from the extruder and shapes it into the finished or semi-finished product.
In the extrusion process, the extrusion die, sometimes known as extruder head, is an essential piece of equipment for the production of the desired product.
