Matching bottles with blowmoulding machines You have a bottle and want to find the right machine to produce it? Or viceversa … you have a blowmoulding machine and want to know if a bottle can be produced? Of course we can answers and help you, but … let’s start from the beginning. What is blowmoulding? Blowmoulding is the process based on which plastic bottles, containers, jerrycans, drums and generally speaking any hollow parts can be produced. Blowmoulding process consists of inflating compressed air into a parison or preform. As soon as the plastic resin touches the mould, it cools down becoming a blown item. What’s the difference between parison and preform? The parison is a plastic tube obtained through an extruder in which the plastic material is forced to pass between a pin and a die. The preform is instead produced through an injector and a mold in which it is possible to distinguish a zone of the threaded neck and a central body; the latter is inflated during the blowing process to typically become a bottle with threaded neck (typically used for the packaging of mineral water). Which are the main processes in blowmoulding? EBM: in Extrusion Blow Moulding, compressed air is blown into the parison, that has been previously made extruding plastic material through a pin and die. EBM can divided into two categories: continuous extrusion (type of machines: shuttle, rotary wheel, parison transfer) and intermittent extrusion (type of machines: reciprocating screw, accumulator head, accumulator head with parison suction). Most frequently used resin: PE, PP. Typical containers made by EBM are: milk bottles for dairy, personal care and cosmetics containers, automotive air ducts, lub-oil containers, jerrycans and drums for industrial packaging. SBM: in Stretch Blow Moulding, the preforms (previously produced by an injection machine) are heated using infrared lamps, then stretched with a core rod and blown with compressed air, in order to get a biaxial orientation. The vertical and horizontal stretching increases the barrier strength. SBM process is ideal to produce very high quantities of bottles in PET for water and carbonated liquids. ISBM: the Injection Stretch Blow Moulding process includes the production of the preform and the blowing of the bottle; therefore there is no longer the reheat stage using infrared lamps. ISBM is suitable for medium quantity PET bottles and unconventional design such as: non-round containers, wide mouth jars, large container. IBM: in Injection Blow Moulding there is no stretching action; therefore bottles are not suitable for PET (water and carbonated liquids). Most frequently used resins are PE and PP. Bottles produced by IBM are typically for cosmetic and pharmaceutical sectors. How to select the right blowmoulding machine? If you have a bottle / container to be produced and cannot identify the suitable machine, just tell us! Our blowmoulding experts will select the right process and the right machine suggesting you the main technical specifications!