Heraeus Noblelight

A carbon infra-red heating system from Heraeus Noblelight, of Neston, is helping to ensure that Leyland Trucks can feed sufficient volumes of polyamide (PA) pipe to its production line to meet the rising demand for trucks from its Leyland, Lancashire factory. The polypropylene pipes are essential components within the various pneumatic systems on modern-day trucks.

Leyland Trucks is a subsidiary of PACCAR, of the United States and manufactures a wide range of vehicles at Leyland. One of these, the DAF XF, received the international truck of the year award in 2007. Pneumatic operating systems are a feature of all trucks and consequently there is a great need for large volumes of air-handling pipework.  This pipework is delivered to the plant in large coils and stored awaiting processing. However, when it is uncoiled, as with all plastics, it must be relaxed to allow it to straighten out. Conventionally, this is done by the application of heat, which slightly plasticizes the polyamide. Previously, this had been done using ceramic infra-red emitters but these were slow running, took a long time to heat up and were prone to break down.