PETpla.net Insider 04/ 2013

BOTTLE MAKING 30 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 04/13 www.petpla.net Bottles, preforms and closures, 2nd Edition - part 2 Determination of bottle properties Ottmar Brandau has newly revised his book, “Bottles Preforms and closures” first published by hbmedia/PETplanetPublisher, and now to be re-issued under the Elsevier imprint. PET- planet insider will be publishing extracts from successive chapters in a series of articles in forthcoming issues. After considering the basic questions relating to bottle design in part 1, the second part talks about the determination of bottle properties. Based on the information collected in the discussions with the customer, as outlined in Part 1, the required properties of the planned container must be defined. Apart from dimen- sions such as diameter and height, plus the capacity and weight, these properties will form the starting point for a first draft design of the new bottle. Top load The required top-load properties can be derived from the desired or industry-specific stacking height. For this purpose, the number of bottles that will be stacked on a single pallet must be determined. In most cases, four bottles are normal, but this of course also depends on the height of the bottle. This figure is then multi- plied by the number of pallets that the customer or the distribution chain will stack on top of each other. Usually the result of this calculation is further multiplied by a safety factor. The result will then be the total load to be supported by the lowest bottles on the pallet without deformation or failure. The bottles must not dent or collapse