UNCERTAINTY can be CRUSHING

Quality pouch converting must deliver consistent seal-integrity on every pouch manufactured. The effects of falling short in this all-important responsibility can be huge. If not identified right away, failures in the pouch seal can have ‘crushing’ financial consequences.

The importance of seal integrity in the zipper crush area

When it comes to seal integrity, one area of particular concern is the zipper crush area, where historically, failures have occurred due to the challenges of achieving consistent hermeticity. With this knowledge in hand, CMD engineers focused attention to this particular function on the innovative  760-SUP pouchmaking system. The result of this work are specific tools the converter has to be confident in the consistent integrity of every zipper-crush seal, and the ability to provide their customers with peace-of-mind.

CMD’s unique Intelligent Sealing Technology offers tools that lend themselves to positively impact this critical area. The control and the principles of Intelligent Sealing Technology present opportunities to re-think the normal method of preparing the zipper profile for the final sealing process. CMD worked closely with zipper suppliers and converters alike, to understand the modes of failure that they were seeing. In the end, the vast majority of zipper failures occurred due to a few common issues:

• Fractures in the zipper profile from too much pressure
• Incomplete caulking of the polymer
• Excessive thinning of the crush area

Our engineers quickly identified opportunities with CMD’s Intelligent Sealing Technology principles, leveraging capabilities against each of the primary drivers for failure that converters had identified. Proof of concept models were developed and tested in CMD’s state-of-the-art Advanced Engineering Analytics Lab, and the result was a patent-pending solution that addresses each of the three failure modes.

Utilizing a proprietary, multi-move control architecture, and dedicated servo actuation, not only can the system be customized to each individual zipper style and size, it also provides the ability to control crush-rate and crush-depth. The end result is a zipper crush area that exhibits superior polymer caulking, which minimizes profile fracture. These results are consistent and repeatable, from pouch to pouch and from lot-to-lot.

Contact Scott Fuller, Pouch Product Line Manager, to discuss how you can put Intelligent Zipper Crushing to work for you. 920-740-8728 [email protected]

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