Flex Durability Tester

Composite film is a new type of packaging material made with plastic film as the base material and other materials such as cellophane, aluminum foil and paper, etc. Composite film has become the most widely used packaging material in the packaging industry because of its cheap price, good appearance, excellent performance and strong practicability. But composite film in the process of production, processing, transportation and application, inevitably flex durability, bending torsion, extrusion, friction, etc. Especially for aluminum foil composite film and aluminum film, due to the limitation of metal ductility and aluminum plating technology, the inside of the aluminum foil or aluminum layer is easily destroyed, which would affect the material barrier performance. For companies, it is very important to choose the composite film materials with excellent flex durability performance. However, it is not enough to judge the flex durability performance of the composite film only by experiences. The detection and analysis from the professional equipment is the key to solve the problem.

Flex Durability Tester - Labthink

Labthink C681M Flex Durability Tester, independently developed and produced by Labthink, can simulate the behaviors of flex durability, folding and pressure damage of films in the process of production, processing, transportation, etc., and detect the change of the number of pinholes or barrier performance of the composite film before and after the test, so as to make scientific quantitative analysis and judgment on the flex durability performance of the material.

C681M Flex Durability Tester is suitable for all kinds of flexible film, composite film, coating film and other materials of flex durability performance tests. In terms of design, in addition to absorbing the essence of similar foreign equipment, it is more innovative in many aspects. The tester selects imported brand servo control system, and the displacement is much more precise with ultra-low failure rate and super-long service life. Intelligent design of dual security protection and automatic reset make the tests more accurate and safer. The tester is designed with four working stations that can test four samples at the same time and is equivalent to four single-station flex durability testers working at the same time which has greatly improved the detection efficiency. The tester provides five standard test modes, i.e., A, B, C, D, E Multiple test modes, and F test mode that can control the times. Multiple testing modes are flexible and highly efficient, which can greatly meet a variety of testing needs of different customers. Industrial touch screen, one-click operation, intuitive operation interface, remote upgrade and maintenance, Chinese and English bilingual operation interface, automatic data storage and automatic memory of power loss and data protection are all available.

Labthink is an international supplier of packaging materials testing instruments and testing services. It is committed to helping customers to deal with packaging problems through the improvement of packaging testing technology and the research and development of testing instruments, and helping the quality and safety of packaging related industries. For more details, please click to Labthink or email to info@labthink.com for consultation. Labthink is looking forward to enhancing technical exchanges and cooperation with enterprises and institutions in the industry.

Powder milk, which contains high content of oil and protein, should be packed in the packages with high barrier property. Aluminum plastic package is one of the main packages used for milk powder, which will be elaborated in this article.

The aluminum foil layer of the aluminum plastic composite packaging plays a great role in protecting the milk powder from oxidization owing to its high oxygen barrier property. However, the aluminum foil layer may be folded and broken during the transportation process, which may cause the reduction of its performance in oxygen barrier property. Therefore, it is necessary to test the flex durability of the aluminum plastic composite packaging to guarantee the oxygen barrier property thus ensure the quality of the milk powder products during shelf life.

This article provides a simplified test method of flex durability of aluminum plastic composite film for your reference.

Figure 1. Aluminum Plastic Composite Film Packaging for Milk Powder

We do the flex durability test with Labthink’s C681M Flex Durability Tester. The test standard is ASTM F392. The flexible specimens are flexed at standard atmospheric conditions (23℃ and 50% relative humidity) unless otherwise specified. Flexing conditions and number and severity of flexing strokes vary with the type of structure being tested. The flexing action consists of a twisting motion followed, in most cases, by horizontal motion, thus, repeatedly twisting and crushing the film. The frequency is at a rate of 45cpm.

Figure 2. C681M Flex Durability Tester

The tests shall be performed according to the following procedures.

Cut three pieces of specimens from the sample material after conditioning the sample material at 23±2℃ and 50±5%RH for at least 24 hours. The length and width of the specimen should be 280mm and 200mm, respectively.

Paste the specimens on the instrument with adhesive tape. The width of the adhesive tape should be 10 ~ 12mm.

Set test parameters and select flex mode.

Close the glass door of the instrument and press TEST to start the tests.

When the preset test cycles are reached, the tests will be finished automatically.

Flex failure is determined by measuring the pinholes formed in the structure. These pinholes are determined by using colored turpentine and allowing it to stain through the holes onto a white backing. As well the barrier property of the specimen can be tested after the flex durability tests to judge whether the specimen has sufficient flex durability that can ensure its barrier property.

For more details about C681M Flex Durability Tester, please visit www.labthink.com

About Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd:

Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd is one leading supplier of packaging testing instruments, which is headquartered in Jinan, China and operated in Boston, U.S.A.

Aseptic medical devices can be produced through final sterilization or sterile processing technology. That is to say, medical device manufacturers provide end users with medical devices that can be used directly without sterilization. The sterility of medical devices is related to the production process, the sterilization process, and the circulation process as well. During the whole circulation process, the packaging bag is an effective barrier to isolate medical devices from the external environment, so maintaining the integrity of the packaging bag is an important measure to prevent secondary pollution of medical devices.

In the process of medical devices circulation, kneading and extruding by external force is inevitable, so the packaging materials should have good flex durability, under the external force the packaging structure maintains intact and no leakage occurs, In this paper, the flex durability of aseptic medical devices packaging bags was tested.

Figure 1 Aseptic medical device Packaging bags examples

In this paper, a plastic composite film used for packaging aseptic medical devices was tested as a sample.

This experiment was conducted conforming to ASTM F392 “Standard practice for conditioning flexible barrier materials for flex durability”.

FDT-02 Flex Durability tester is used as test equipment, which is independently developed and manufactured by Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd.

图2  FDT-02揉搓试验仪

Figure 2 FDT-02 Flex Durability Tester

The testing instrument simulates the flexing effect that medical devices packaging materials may be subjected to in the actual circulation process, flexes the samples horizontally and vertically, and controlling the flex strength of the samples by choosing different flexing modes (different flexing times and different movement schedules). There are two main methods to evaluate the flex durability of samples. One is the method to compare the barrier properties of samples before and after flex, if there is no significant change of the barrier properties, the sample has good flex durability, otherwise the sample has poor flex durability is there is significantly difference in barrier properties before after flex; the other method is to use turpentine oil to analyze the flexed samples. If there are pinholes on the sample, turpentine will leave spots on the white paper. By comparing the number and size of the spots before and after flex, the flex durability of the samples can be obtained. In this paper, the flex durability of the samples was tested by turpentine method.

(1) Cut three 200 mm x 280 mm specimens from the sample material.

(2) Fix three pieces of specimens with pressure-sensitive tape on three workstations of the equipment and fix with clamps; closed the protective cover, selected the test mode and started the test; the equipment begins to flex, and stopped automatically after the set number of times of flex; open the protective cover, remove the clamp, and take off the specimens.

(3) Mark a test area of 150 mm x 200 mm in the middle of the each samples after flex.

(4) Take a piece of white paper and lay it on the test board. Place one specimen on the white paper. Apply the turpentine oil repeatedly on the test area of the specimen. Remove the specimen after 1 minute and observe the size and quantity of red spots on the white paper.

(5) Repeat (4) operation and test the remaining two samples.

In this experiment, C mode was used to knead the samples. One pinhole appeared in each of two specimens, three pinholes appeared in one specimen.

Good integrity and sealing properties of packaging bags is a guarantee to protect the aseptic medical devices from secondary contamination. The integrity of packaging is closely related to the flex durability of packaging materials. In this paper, the flex durability of plastic composite film for packaging aseptic medical devices was tested by measuring the number of pinholes on the surface of the sample after flex. The test process was simple, the equipment was easy to operate and the test results were accurate. Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd, is dedicated to providing customers with packaging testing solutions and helping the manufacturers to reach their goals of quality and safety assurance through improvement of packaging testing techniques and development of high-end packaging testing instruments. For more information please visit www.labthink.com

On 17^th-20^th May, 2011, the 25^th International Exhibition on Plastics and Rubber Industries was held in Guangzhou. Labthink exhibited her newly developed X series of intelligent products, and demonstrated powerful functions of Labthink Cystem^TM Online Laboratory Management System, the new laboratory intelligence concept based on cloud-computing. All have obtained favorable responses and recognition, and Labthink booth became one of the crowded booths among the exhibitors.
Chinaplas 2011 is the debut for Labthink Cystem^TM Online Management System, the world leading technology in flexible packaging testing industry; it’s undoubted that this system became the focus. Labthink X series of intelligent instruments also drew the attention of the attending experts, based on their modern designs, patented structures and connecting property to the cloud-computing management platform, etc.
During the exhibition, every Labthink instrument was surrounded by visitors from different places and different industries: experts from quality inspection institutes and academies, engineers from packaging manufacturers, and technicians from packaging users… Detailed product performances and functions were inquired by the visitors, and the booth turned into a seminar for those new products. After learning detailed information, visitors were inspired by the intelligent laboratory management system of Labthink. Many of them expressed their desire for cooperation, among whom, Belorussian client signed the contract during the exhibition, and promised to establish long-term strategic cooperation with Labthink.
As the leader in flexible packaging testing industry, Labthink(http://www.labthink.cn/en) will go on devoting herself to technological innovation and provide industrial clients with more intelligent testing instruments!

More details  about Labthink, please feel free to contact Shirley Wu via: