Polymer films have numerous packaging applications such as plastic bags, pouches, flexible packaging and so on. However, the rising need for high resistant plastic film has left manufacturers helpless and increased the competition. Due to a large network of export and import products have started moving out of their comfort zone and reaching too far places. During the transit, they require strong packaging quality which is resistant to accidental cases.
Falling Dart Impact Test on Plastic films is a vital step of Quality Assurance in Packaging Industry. It calculates the resistance of a plastic to fracture on free-falling weight. It depends on the toughness of the plastic film if it clears the test or not. The test also evaluates the limit at which the film will fail and rupture. This way the transit conditions can also be set accordingly. To assure an error-free test, it must be conducted using an efficient testing instrument such as Presto Stantest Dart Impact Tester. It is designed to determine the strength of packaging films on experiencing free-falling weight. The Instrument uses a single stand apparatus with a magnetic dart holder and HMI based touchscreen control panel. Below is the specimen clamping area along with a protective cover.
The instrument is designed as per IS 2508:1984(R2003) and ASTM D1709-16A. The standards are globally accepted for dart impact test. The touchscreen control offers multiple test programs. It allows the user to set test parameters, such as weight, magnet time on/off, the falling height and the impact load. It evaluates the final test graph and can show more than one test result on one graph. One can even perform repeatable testing for higher accuracy in results. The protective cover just above the specimen clamping area is designed to protest the bounce-fall of the dart. Sometime during the test, when the dart is allowed to fall, they hit the film and if the specimen is resistant enough, the dart bounce back and falls anywhere else bringing unwanted damages. The protective cover avoids this situation and helps the dart settle down on the specimen only. The dart impact tester has a strong clamping mechanism in which they are clamped from both front and bottom and stretched tight exposing the centre are for the impact test.
