Pressure tester gauges quality of packaging material
shelf life, helping food and beverage packagers to ensure the
quality of their products.
The PPT3000's design gives it a high degree of precision and the versatility to perform a number of industry tests, says AgrTopWave, which released the device this month.
The pre-defined test profiles target the needs of both container manufacturers and fillers for simple quality control testing, the company stated.
The PPT3000 performs pressure and volume expansion testing on containers. It offers temperature-compensated volume expansion testing for plastic containers, spouted pouches and aluminum bottles.
The device's temperature compensated volume expansion data function enables bottle producers to eliminate discrepancies in test results due to varying water test temperatures, and effectively compare bottle-to-bottle performance regardless of location, time of year and testing environment.
The PPT3000 can also provide feedback on the materials used in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) products, and the container's shelf-life performance.
Its software-based predictive tool does this by analysing the pressure and volume expansion data it captures. The software analyses the data affecting the permeability of a container. The results are displayed on the PPT3000 monitor.
The combination with the PPT3000 pressure and temperature data allows container manufacturers to verify performance characteristics within a very short time after production, greatly reducing the incidence of latent quality issues, the company claims.
This gives packagers the ability to monitor and gauge bottle shelf-life during routine quality testing, at the time of manufacture. It is also capable of doing mold-correlated fill-ramp, burst or custom tests on containers.
The PPT3000 runs through a closed-loop servo control system that can precisely control tests based on bottle pressure. A graphic display of pressure and expansion data provides the operator with a visual map of the test in progress.
Pre-programmed and customer defined pressure test profiles permit operators to select an industry defined test or create a special test profile to meet their specific needs.
The bench-top design features a corrosion resistant composite shell, stainless steel inner workings, on-board diagnostics and optional water filtration and recirculation systems.
The built-in test database permits the creation and storage of test profiles that include all pertinent data such as mold number, job identification and end-of-test failure comments for each test as well as calibration history, the company stated.
The data displayed includes peak and end-of-test bottle pressure, volume expansion along with pressure and expansion graphs. Data can be shared with other databases via RS232 or Ethernet connections.
AgrTopWave is a division of AGR International.
