In packaged consumer goods industry, the condition of label telegraphs the condition of goods. The consumer will not purchase products with a damaged package. Printed labels should meet the requirements of any printed surface for a particular application like scuffing, resistance to fading or particular products.
To prepare the product for delivery, the information data printed on the product is more important. Often due to long storage or due to shipment, the printed details are erased. Scuffing is damaging form of wear that occurs due to rubbing of two materials with each other. As a result of scuffing, the important data gets erased causing loss of user interest. Abrasion or scuffing leads to punctures and leakage too. Exposed labels and thin walled metal beverage containers are more commonly at risk. The legibility of print gets reduced due to abrasion.
Using Scuff Resistance Tester which is sophisticated and high-end machines, it is possible to get high quality packaging. Consumer products along with industrial goods like electronics, machinery and equipment tend to face damages in the supply chain. These damages hamper the sales of the product and reduced shelf availability. Scuffing is the most important issue reported by customers.
Reasons for the damage are:
- Due to repetitive vibration from direct impact on printed materials during road or air transit.
- Temperature and humidity play an important as some products are sensitive to environmental conditions.
- Free fall impact especially to perform tests on drug packaging as it has many handlers such as transporters, retailers, hospital staff, patient etc.
- Storage of packing materials plays an important for the sake of quality packaging.
Scuff Tester rubs two printed surfaces of the product with each other face to face to create scuffing under uniform scuffing pressure. It is used in paper and packaging industries to measure scuff resistance of printed surfaces at the time of shipment. It adheres to ASTM standard to meet the requirements of the customer. The machine has two movable plates to hold the samples. These two plates are rubbed against each other. The number of rotations is set on the pre-set counter.
Scuff resistance tester determines the shelf life of printability on corrugated or plastic packaging. Various testing instruments are available in the market to test the environment and intended use. The actual friction is assumed in this test. Many other packaging materials can be tested using this instrument such as brochures, magazines, glossy papers etc.
