Sidel outlines new shape opportunities for PET packaging

At this year’s Blow Moulding Conference held in Cologne, Germany, Sidel gave insights into increased PET packaging shape opportunities and how to achieve them.

The focus for Sidel was SteadyEDGE, a patented base solution for PET package design variants in the Food, Home and Personal Care (FHPC) markets that it says ensures a stable and cost-efficient production.

Compared to standard preferential heating, Sidel says SteadyEDGE can reduce packaging weight from 22 grams to 20 grams, lower the blowing pressure needed to shape the package base, and increase the output speed. This way, it says brand owners, co-packers and packaging manufacturers can achieve their return on investment (ROI) in less than one year.

Designed to meet the challenge of producing flat, oval and rectangular containers in PET, which require the specific preferential heating (PH) blow moulding process, SteadyEDGE allows optimum material distribution to achieve a good quality package. Sidel says the innovative base technology enlarges marketing opportunities for containers with complex shapes and large labelling surfaces.

“The sharper edges on the container are used to effectively flatten and increase the 'standing ring' area of the base,” explained José Andre, Technical Sales Managerat Sidel. “This leads to an enhanced stability of up to 35 per cent, which in turn makes it possible to speed up the process output by up to 10 per cent. Because bottles are far less likely to fall while being conveyed between several machines, this results in fewer costly stoppages and greatly improved uptime.”

Andre said that additionally, the containers can be lightweighted by up to 10 per cent, improving the material distribution on the base while using less energy. “This is coupled with a reduction in blowing pressure, to decreases energy consumption by up to 20 per cent during production, when limitation is linked to base design,” he added.

With customers looking to optimise preform and bottle design in the face of complex container shapes, whilst also increasing their production reliability, Sidel has designed a specific base for SteadyEDGE, a patented base mould system known as the Base OverStroke System (BOSS).

“BOSS is a piston activated in the blowing phase to stroke the base. This mechanical element allows for the raising and lowering of the base during the bottle-forming process, independent of the opening and closing of the two half-shells of the mould,” continued Andre. “BOSS provides flexible and versatile production with the option to quickly implement mould changeovers and ensure maximum production and higher bottle quality.”