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2007-10-09 Manufacturing News
Blow Molding System for Beverage Packaging to Début at Plastics Show Equinox, the first automatic plastics blow molding regulation system from Sidel, monitors and corrects beverage bottle packaging quality during production.
With the advent of increasingly lightweight PET packages, blow molding takes on new importance in the beverage packaging process. In fact, poor bottle quality negatively affects quality on the entire production line and can even lead to total production shutdown. Material distribution holds the key to bottle quality. Early detection of material distribution problems can help protect an entire production run. Until now, quality control during production has involved frequent sampling and measuring of the plastics bottles in the lab followed by manual blow molding process adjustment if necessary. In the time it takes to complete this step, production of out-of-tolerance bottles can continue for up to ninety minutes.
Sidel is paving the way for automatic, continuous quality control of plastics blow molding. The Equinox* system built into Sidel’s rotary blow molding machines ensures consistent, top quality PET bottle production for better overall bottling line efficiency. See photo at right. Equinox monitors and corrects bottle quality during production regardless of output rate. No samples are required because Equinox automatically measures the exact weight of every plastics bottle base. If the system detects variations from the setpoint weight, it corrects the problem by adjusting certain blow molding parameters. No machine shutdown is required. In most cases, the automatic regulation occurs so quickly that no variation in material distribution exceeds the control limits set for the production mode. Step 1: Infrared light monitors base weight Equinox automatically measures the exact weight of bottle bases using the INTELLIMAS** system from Pressco Technology Inc., a quality control specialist and Sidel partner in the development of Equinox. The system uses sensor modules that emit infrared light. That light is absorbed by PET at specific rates depending on mass of material that absorbs infrared radiation. Step 2: Regulation by automatic adjustment of two parameters Sidel draws on its plastics blow molding process expertise to perform a statistical analysis on this weight measurement. If the weight is beyond the tolerance limit based on the initial setpoint, then the blow molding machine’s control algorithm is automatically triggered, and the operator receives a warning about the problem. Two critical parameters that directly influence material distribution can be adjusted. Changes to pre-blow pressure regulate overall production on all stations, and modifying the start of pre-blow adjusts individual stations. These parameters are automatically adjusted until the weight stabilizes and returns to normal (indicating the plastics bottle quality and uniformity). It takes about two minutes to completely stabilize the process. If Equinox
is unable to return the base weight curve to within tolerance limits,
it automatically lets the operator know which blow molding station is
causing the problem so that the operator can either modify pressure flow
or take other corrective measures. ** INTELLIMASS is an applied trademark of Pressco Technology Inc., a
U.S. company that specializes in developing machine vision inspection
systems for the global food, beverage and container industries. Plastics Packaging Jobs - U-$ave Post Employment Opportunity NOW!
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