Excursion: Kurtz Ersa

On Friday, we made a final stop on our three-day excursion at Kurtz Ersa in Kreuzwertheim near Würzburg, a mechanical engineering company that is now in its 7th generation of family management. The company, which was founded in 1779 as a hammer forge and later merged with the soldering machine manufacturer Ersa, also produces metal 3D metal printers, metal casting machines and, above all, machines for manufacturing particle foam parts in addition to the aforementioned soldering machines. Of particular interest to us was the RadioFrequency process developed in-house for welding particle foam. In the so-called Wave Foamer, the pre-foamed particles are not fused by means of steam, as is usually the case, but are excited by electromagnetic waves. This process guarantees better core welding and saves around 90% of the energy compared to the steam-based process due to the absence of steam (in the case of EPS).
After a guided tour of the plant, we were allowed to try out the molds we had brought with us on the small laboratory wave foamer – just like at the Fraunhofer ICT. In addition to the various materials for the molds, e.g. wood, plaster, ABS, PC etc., we were also allowed to experiment with parameters such as pressure, temperature and time. PC turned out to be particularly suitable, which enabled us to produce our first satisfactory particle foam part from ETPU, which was received with applause.