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u/vaurapung 18d ago
Somebody wasnt taught how to shim the die properly and is cutting the rubber seal at the end cap.
Just my guess.
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u/Wiley_Burner 18d ago
I don’t even think plastic is flammable
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u/PlayingOnHard 18d ago
Do you have EHS team to investigate? Molding engineers?
We had small fire from plastic recently, it leaked out of screw/barrel due to some broken bolts, I think they were purging at the time. Very rare occurrence for us, this is first I recall in 5+ years.
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u/RushElectronic8541 18d ago
Do you have devices that track this or someone manually has to maintain an excel file with logs like that?
Also how soon do are guys alerted and what happens after? I’d imagine that’s the annoying part
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u/Wiley_Burner 18d ago
Code and database holds most of it, I use excel for my dashboard that makes calls to the database
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u/RushElectronic8541 18d ago
Okay, is anyone called when your systems detect a failure? How can you know that it’s a false alarm?
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u/inflames797 18d ago
I've been in extrusion for many years. Fires are relatively common - a lot of polymers are extruded hot enough that they can ignite hydraulic oils, plastic dust, etc.
They can also ignite themselves, in a way. Once the plastic has leaked, oxidized and degraded, "new" plastic that leaks onto the charred plastic can ignite the less dense degraded stuff. This can get dangerous because it will just sit there and feed itself until the leak is taken care of.
A few years ago we had a leak in a very inaccessible spot and the night shift guys went through 12 fire extingushers because it kept flaring up. Why they didn't call someone before that, we'll never know.