Development of PET Bottle Handling Mechanism for Monobloc Blow Molding and Filler

Abstract

The filling and packaging industry is moving towards cost effective and hygenically sound solutions which can be used to convey the PET bottles from the blow molding stage to the filling and further stages. The concept of coupling blow molding and filler machine directly is a step in this direction and as with any new concept there are some difficulties that need to be overcomed for its succesful implementation. As a part of this, the present work is focussed on an entirely new concept of transfer of PET bottles from gripper units in blow molding machine to transfer star wheel system which will guide the bottle up to the filler stage and hence eliminating the air conveyor which were previously used to convey the bottles. The direct transfer of bottles from gripper to transfer star in between the blow molding and filler machine has not been done previously. The tranfer star wheel technology that will be used in this system is the main area of focus and also effort will be made to conceptulize or develop a mechanism to avoid the problem of jamming in case of emergency stopping conditions. The PET bottles involve neck handling and because of the properties of PET the proper guidance of bottles from the blow molding to the filler is the priority and the different ways are to be thought of by which the bottles can be conveyed with neck handling . The project also includes the estimations of heat transfer involved in the cooling of PET bottle base as problems like stress cracking, bulging at the bottom may occur and as it is very important from the filling and quality point of view. This will involve understanding the heat transfer phenomenon involved and theoretical calculation of the process parameters like heat transfer coefficient , heat transfer rate , temperatues of the base which in the future can prove useful as part of thermal analysis.