Jan/Feb 2022

Behind the Scenes
Continued from page 17
QC testing provided by Selecta’s Carl Hillman
SYSTEMS
root cause of the failure, and corrective and
preventive actions applied to ensure the issue
doesn’t happen again. Passed profile is packed
within stillages and transferred to the storage
warehouse, ready for order picking.
of extrusion, with full dimensional, colour and
operational checks with associated profiles,
reinforcements, accessories and ancillaries.
Upon the start-up and then every two days of a
profile section’s production run, physical property
tests are carried out within the QC lab. This
consists of a series of tests that simulate adverse
climatic effects to ensure that the profile section
continues to perform to a high standard when
subject to these extremities.
“There’s so much more
to the whole extrusion
process, going from
that initial powdered
raw material to PVCu
window or door profile
section”
This is done for the ten samples and recorded.
The test simulates a cold winters night / day and
the consequence of an object making contact with
the profile section.
Two further QC lab tests are carried out, one
for determination of appearance (heat ageing)
after exposure at 150 degrees celsius and
determination of heat reversion. The latter
determines the deterioration of a profile section
after three 250mm section samples are placed
in a conditioned oven at 100 degrees celsius
for a minimum of one hour. The reversion, or
deterioration, is measured as a percentage
change of the final length relative to the initial
length.
If a failure is identified, stock is quarantined
and an investigation is carried out to find the
All of the extrusion processes and QC testing
is carried out in accordance with our product
Kitemark licence, standard BS EN 12608-1:2016
and our ISO 9001 Quality Management System
requirements. Company processes, procedures
and testing are externally audited by British
Standards Institute (BSi) every 6 months, with
further audit test sampling carried out at BSi
UKAS accredited labs based on the same criteria.
There’s so much more to the whole extrusion
process, going from that initial powdered raw
material to PVCu window or door profile section.
This behind-the-scenes feature will give those
of you who are unfamiliar with the process a
quick overview and insight in to the methods and
A finished profile extrusion
practices involved. It’s
not just a window or door or a piece of plastic to
Selecta.
It is that precision engineered product that we
envisaged from the start.
Contact Selecta Systems:
0121 325 2100
www.selectasystems.com/
@SelectaSystems
A finished profile extrusion
To simulate extreme cold conditions, cold impact
testing consists of ten profile section samples
cut to 300mm and conditioned to -10ºC for a
minimum of 1hr. Selecta, condition sections
above the requirements with the freezer set to
-13ºc and for a minimum of 2 hrs.
Each one of the ten samples is taken out of the
freezer, once conditioned, and placed in a jig
where a 1kg weight is dropped on the profile
section from 1.5m in height. If the sample breaks,
it fails and if the weight ‘bounces’ off, it passes.
18 TF JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 CONNECTING THE WINDOW, DOOR & ROOF FABRICATION SUPPLY CHAIN