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Optical on‐line measurement of the thickness distribution of blow molding parisons
Author(s) -
Swan P. L.,
Kamal M. R.,
GarciaRejon A.,
Cielo P.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.10486
Subject(s) - materials science , blow molding , optics , line (geometry) , mold , measure (data warehouse) , laser , software , beam (structure) , acoustics , composite material , computer science , physics , geometry , mathematics , programming language , database
An optical sensor has been developed which can measure the thickness profile of the parison on line just prior to its enclosure in the mold. The device determines thickness by striking the parison at an angle with a laser beam and measuring the separation between the beams that are reflected from the outer and inner surfaces of the parison wall. A prototype was built and tested. The prototype uses three lasers at different angles and can make up to 250 point measurements during a one second scan. A personal computer uses specially developed software to reconstruct the profile of the parison wall from the raw data with an accuracy of ±5%.