Online measurement keeps sticky tapes sticky

NDC Infrared Engineering's 6100TC system is being used by Irish based Coatings and Technical Tapes to measure adhesive coating thickness accurately and reduce coat weight variations.

NDC Infrared Engineering's 6100TC system is being used by Irish based Coatings and Technical Tapes (CTT) to measure adhesive coating thickness accurately and reduce coat weight variations.

CTT, develops and manufactures specialist adhesive tapes using polyester and polyimide film and other substrates, providing tapes for electrical, industrial, medical and other applications.

The NDC Infrared Engineering 6100TC system was installed by CTT on a new production line with the principle aim of reducing coat weight profile variations and improving the product quality.

These two goals have been achieved using the equipment, and there have been further benefits.

Operations Director, Andrew Corby says: "We have been totally satisfied by the equipment which has proven to be extremely reliable, providing our operators with exactly the information and data they need without being overly complex.

The system has, by our estimations, paid for itself at least three times over".

Product quality is critical to CTT's manufacturing process as the company aims to satisfy its customer demands for quality product.

The 6100TC enables CTT to control the coat weight accurately profile, provides continuous monitoring with alarm functions if the coat weight goes out of specification and also gives them access to roll reports, which are used for product validation at a later date.

Furthermore, through improvements in process control and consistent product quality, CTT have also benefited greatly from reduced material and adhesive usage.

"Our calculations indicate that our adhesive usage has been cut by approximately 5% as a result of monitoring the production with the gauging system," commented Corby.

"As the adhesive can equate to as much as 80% of the raw material cost for some products, this level of saving is financially significant.

Prior to using the 6100TC system we used manual coat weight checks that resulted in overcoating to ensure we met our customer specifications.

We would cut samples from the web to do spot checks, which compromised the production run and sometimes led to web breaks.

Manual weight checking also means that product is only checked at distinct periodic intervals".

For this particular application overcoating not only wastes costly adhesive but also leads to poor product quality.

As explained by Corby: "An excess of adhesive results in higher adhesive strength and a tackier product which may not be what our customers want.

Using continuous online monitoring ensures the product is manufactured to specification with confidence every time".

The NDC Infrared Engineering 6100TC system is designed for ease of use and for reliability.

The sensor is a compact instrument that scans the full web width providing accurate and repeatable measurements, which are displayed as full-width scan profiles on a high-resolution colour monitor with touch screen interface.

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