Food packaging testing equipment highly automated

Food safety is closely related to the safety of people's lives. Accordingly, there is a higher demand for food packaging. Food packaging safety testing is an important part of the food production process. Higher degree of automation and stronger system reliability have become the trend of food packaging inspection technology.

Foreign body detection Foreign body detection is an indispensable part of the food and beverage packaging process. Full automation and high reliability are typical features of foreign object detection technology.

InspX has introduced a new ScanTrac 200X light detection system for detecting product packaging for foreign matter entry, package integrity and confirmation of contents. The ScanTrac200 offers a very fast detection speed while ensuring detection accuracy and reducing costs. For the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical packaging industries, the inspection speed can reach 700 feet per minute and about 2200 pieces can be detected. Metals, glass shards, stones, bones, rubber, or other foreign materials that are contained in various cartons, cans, plastics, and glass packages can be inspected. It is also possible to detect empty or unfilled products and damaged containers. At the same time, ScanTrac can also provide real-time analysis and detection, and automatically remove unqualified products from the production line.

The ScanTrac 200X detection system can effectively detect a variety of foreign materials in the package. The machine is equipped with a low-energy X-ray system and advanced image processing software to detect extremely small contaminants. The unique design can also effectively reduce system installation costs. The unique image processing system does not require timing belts necessary for other X-ray systems. The compact test system can be easily mounted on the belt to reduce the cost of factory renovations. This economical high-performance packaging inspection equipment can meet the needs of a variety of different scale factories.

According to the needs of different packaging products, the X-ray intensity only needs to be adjusted through program settings, and can be done in a few seconds. The entire system has diagnostic settings and automatic identification. The menu can be set up gradually and remote monitoring can be implemented. Inexperienced operators can perform normal tests with simple training.

Special inspection systems for different packaging designs are also one of the development trends. For example, Krones introduced the RotoCheck system for beer packaging for glass residue detection.

Krones' latest RotoCheck is a rotary full-bottle detection system that can detect glass fragments as small as 0.5mm in length and remove the problem bottles directly. RotoCheck is designed for the production of 40,000 to 72,000 bottles per hour.

Krones' first RotoCheck system was put into use at a brewery in 2004 with a line speed of 60,000 bottles/hour. Since the beginning of 2004, it has been operating continuously with a capacity of 60,000 bottles/hour. In the brewery, it is necessary to detect the presence of glass residue in an opaque beer filled with brown, thick-walled recycling bottles. Some bottles also have deep scars. The results are fully met: the recognition rate of 0.5 mm glass slag is 90%, and the false reject rate is less than 0.05%; for completely transparent bottles, the detection reliability is higher.

Leak Detection Techniques In order to avoid empty packs, unsatisfied packaging, or package leaks in the production process, it is often necessary to perform packaging integrity tests.

InterTech Development Corporation (IDC) launched two leak detection production lines, equipped with automatic identification and system validation functions, mainly for the detection of liquid food packaging. As the first leak detection equipment supplier to provide this function, IDC's new M1075 CALVAL-03 and -04 models no longer require manual inspection, zero adjustment and scanning, or manual calibration of test parameters throughout the entire production process. automatic completion. Both new instruments can be tested according to the customer's needs and can also be run automatically according to programming.

The solid-state CALVAL technology that the aircraft is equipped with can reduce the wear and air gap of pneumatic valves or other moving parts that may occur in pneumatic systems, and improve system reliability. Another advantage of CALVAL is that it can maintain the same stable test conditions as the prototype when tested in large quantities.

The M-1075 CALVAL-03 is equipped with IDC's patented mass-flow sensing technology, which is mainly used for upstream testing, ranging from 0.10-4.00 sccm (standard l/min). The CALVAL-04 is mainly used for downstream testing of small leaks. The test range is from 0.01 to 0.25 sccm. Both models have temperature compensation. The test pressure ranges from 0 to 5 bar and delivers repeatability and accuracy of 0.05% FSD.

The CALVAL system guarantees good consistency between large-volume leak detection and small number of tests. A vacuum fluorescent display is provided on the front panel of the unit for reporting test parameters, dynamically displaying test results, and final acceptance/removal status. The status is automatically displayed with different identifiers without the need for an operator to judge.

Adaptive Detection In order to meet future market demands, GF Srl has developed a detection system based on "neuronal control technology" for packaging process inspection.

This detection system based on "neural network software" can adapt to the detection needs of different shapes, different operating parameters and different working conditions, and fully improve the sensitivity of the control system and reduce the error rate. The neural network is a distributed processing system composed of the most basic digitizing units (neurons). The system has self-learning, self-adaptation, self-storage, and self-diagnosis functions. Self-learning and self-adaption have the ability to acquire "knowledge" from the outside, and "knowledge" is stored as a network parameter. Through the identification and diagnosis of related parameters and shapes, system detection can be achieved. Can significantly reduce the error rate, and has excellent device sensitivity. The setting of testing equipment is very simple. Today, this innovative detection system has been applied to the company's Lynx and A&V systems.

Material test paper and plastic are the two most important packaging materials for the packaging industry, and the sum of the two accounts for approximately 98% of the packaging market. As one of the most important components of the packaging industry, food packaging is also the main application area for paper packaging and plastic packaging. The use of qualified paper or packaging is an important factor in ensuring the safety of food packaging. Therefore, different manufacturers have also introduced new test equipment for testing packaging materials.

The traditional method for testing the burst strength of paper is rolling, which often takes a lot of time for laboratory personnel. To facilitate the testing process, Lorentzen & Wettre (L&W) introduced a strength test method equipped with an automatic feeding mechanism.

Adapting to a variety of paper strength testing equipment, paper feeding is fully automated. There are standard test methods for the blasting strength testing of paper, cardboard and corrugated board. The L&W Intensity Tester can not only test blasting strength, but also test blast energy absorption rate (BEA) and thin film compensation blasting strength.

With this automatic feeding structure, the operator only needs to put the pattern on the operating table, lower the feeding device, and then press the start button. Clamping feet drop to complete the blasting test. The sample is then released to the next test position. The results of its several tests require only a few operations and the test results are more reliable.

Test results are displayed on an easy-to-read display. The results and statistics of a single test can be output on the printer. The results can also be copied to the PC.