New quality analysis system assesses film properties in laboratory and production

Brabender offers its new film quality analysis system, the Brabender FQA, for detection of inclusions, inhomogeneities and defects, as well as automatic classification according to defect classes and defect types.

The FQA includes a high-resolution camera that detects defects, such as black specs, gels, fish eyes, extrusion lines and streaks.

With the help of the recorded size distribution and number of defects, the film quality index (FQI) is continuously determined, which can be used as a reference value for incoming goods inspection and quality monitoring.

Brabender FQA detects defects in films.

The system can also be adapted to peripheral devices, such as Univex flat film take-off, blown film take-off and Brabender Auto Grader, and thus be used to evaluate the optical properties of both flat films and blown films.

The connection of the extrusion process data with the determined optical properties within the self-developed MetaBridge software and the resulting possibility of building up a holistic process understanding should be emphasized.

Not only can Brabender FQA characterizes optical film properties in material development at laboratory level, it can also work efficiently for inline process monitoring in the production process.

With the increasing use of recyclates for sustainability, contamination of these secondary raw materials bring challenges to plastic processing.

With FQA system, plastic processing companies can evaluate the processability and application-specific suitability of plastic formulations, not only on optical features that influence visual quality, such as transparency, but also technical properties of a film.